What if?
by IxlovexHP
Summary: What if, instead of going to King's Cross Station after Voldemort casts 'Avada Kedavra' on him, Harry goes back in time to when his father and his friends were at Hogwarts?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer- Anything to do with Harry Potter, I don't own!

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><p>Chapter 1<p>

_The castle was in ruins. It hurt to look at the building that had been his home for seven years, be reduced to rubble, in one, giant battle. __Over fifty people had died, some which he had known and trusted, and others in which he had barely acknowledged through the years, which he regretted now. His thoughts were cast back to seeing the motionless bodies that had been laid in the Great Hall; Fred, Tonks, Remus…_

This thought brought tears to Harry's eyes; he had become so close to Remus after Sirius's death. They had had many long talks about everything and nothing, and they understood each other, understood what it was like to lose people you loved. In amongst the talks, they had started to discuss plans for the future, and the possibility of them living together, which brought Harry hope again, only to have him ripped away from Harry like so many others he had held close to him. Still, he was going to join them now, be with them wherever death had a hold on them.

He had reached the edge of the forest now, and suddenly there were hundreds of golden butterflies, flitting around him like snitches, teasing him about the games of quidditch he would never play again.

The snitch… I open at the close…

Harry felt deep into his pocket until he grasped the cool outer surface of the snitch that he had held since it was gave to him, from Dumbledore's will. His cold hands fumbled to press the gold metal to his mouth before whispering 'I am about to die'. The shell broke open, revealing a black stone with a jagged crack down the middle of it, the broken remnants of the snitch cradling it like a baby. The resurrection stone was turned over three times by Harry's hand, whilst he closed his eyes and pictured the people he wanted to see again more than anything. When he opened them again he found himself in the middle of a circle of those he wished to see again. They were neither real nor fake, resembling most like the figure of Tom Riddle Harry had seen in second year.

James was exactly the same height as Harry. He was wearing the clothes in which he had died, and his hair was untidy and ruffled, and his glasses were a little lopsided, like Mr. Weasley's.

Sirius was tall and handsome, and younger by far than Harry had seen him in his life. He loped with an easy grace, his hands in his pockets and a grin on his face.

Lupin was younger too, and much less shabby, and his hair was thicker and darker. He looked happy to be back in this familiar place, scene of so many adolescent wanderings.

Lily's smile was widest of all. She pushed her long hair back as she drew close to him, and her green eyes, so like his, searched his face hungrily, as though she would never be able to look at him enough.

He could not speak. His eyes feasted on her, and he thought that he would like to stand and look at her forever, and that would be enough. "I didn't want any of you to die for me" Harry addressed them all, before turning to Remus "especially you Remus, just after you've had your son. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry as well, that I will never know him, but he will know that I died to try and make the world a better place for him to grow up, I hope. "Still, I'll see you soon." Harry replied, attempting a half smile, his gaze sweeping around the four figures all gazing at him with equal proudness in their eyes. "Does it hurt?" The question fell from his lips before he could stop it.

"Dying?" Sirius answered "Not at all, it's quicker and easier than falling to sleep."

"Ok, ok" Harry nodded his head a few times, as if to prepare himself, before looking at each of them individually. "Stay with me."

Even without the invisibility cloak, Harry would've felt protected, for he had people he knew would look after him, regardless of the fact they were not alive. Just before reaching the clearing in the forest, he heard voices, and knew that he was near. Just a few steps further, and he was there.

"I felt sure he would come." The cold voice of Voldemort drew out an involuntary shiver through the length of Harry's spine, "It seems I was mistaken."

"You weren't." Harry was surprised at the strong and calm tone to his voice, when his heart was banging against his chest. In his concentration at ripping the invisibility cloak of him, he accidentally dropped the resurrection stone from his numb fingers to the floor of the forest. As soon as the stone slipped from his hand, the individuals disappeared in an instant, but he knew that they were still there, whether or not he could see them.

He could just about make out Hagrid shouting at him to stop, and not to do it, but as all his focus was on what he had to do, Hagrid's message was a mere whisper. There were a couple of death eaters scattered around the area, all shocked at his arrival. For example, Harry could make out the horrifying silhouette of Bellatrix, who looked hysterical, and Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy who Harry could tell just wanted to get their son and leave as soon as possible. They seemed to no longer want to be part of this massacre.

Here he was, defenceless; the only thing standing between him and death was a man, if you could call him that, who had wanted to kill him for 17 years. He looked into the red, piercing eyes of Voldemort and prayed it would be over quickly.

"Avada Kedavra!" He saw the green light hurtling towards him, and as he made no move to defend himself, he knew the result was inevitable. From the corner of his eye, he saw a curious golden light also streaming towards him. However, before he could consider anything thing else, everything went black.

**A/N- Thinking about doing slash in later chapters, either between Remus/Sirius or Remus/Harry, or not at all? Please review ****and say which ****would be best!**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

When Harry opened his eyes, he saw a blurry figure above his head bending over him. Grasping on the floor for his glasses, he shoved them over his eyes and saw to his astonishment that he was face to face with none other than Remus Lupin.

"Are you alright?" Remus's voice was kind, but at the same time filled with a confusion that Harry seemed to miss in his own astonishment.

"Who's the kid on the floor Moony?"

"Where did he come from?"

Two more voices echoed from further away than the two of them caught Harry's attention. Startled, he sat up, and as other features from his surroundings came into focus, he saw two other figures in the background that stirred in his memory. Sirius! And his father! They looked younger, almost exactly like the figures he had seen in Snape's memory in fifth year. Turning his vision back to Remus, he realised that he too looked younger and although still scarred, he looked more… tranquil than Harry had ever seen him.

Memories of what had just happened to him came racing back to Harry's head. There was no other explanation, he decided, he was dead, and if this is the 'afterlife' then he would be more than ok here. Voldemort had killed him, and here he was in Heaven.

A smile spread onto his face, and he threw his arms around Remus, he was so happy to see him again. He was so joyful that he failed to see the shocked look that clearly said "Help me" in which Remus threw to his friends, who looked equally surprised at this sudden occurrence.

A shadow cast over Harry from behind, and as he swivelled round to see Professor Dumbledore looking down at him with a blank expression. He was just about to greet his old time professor when he stopped by the harsh tone of his voice. "Mr Lupin, do you know who this boy is?" he asked, eyes never leaving Harry's.

"No sir, he just appeared out of nowhere, and I came to see if he was ok." At Remus's words, Harry's level of bewilderment rose. How can they not know him? Looking round, he saw that all pupils had the same look of confusion clearly etched on their faces whilst all staring at him, especially Sirius and his dad.

"In which case, you will need to come to my office". This was clearly directed at Harry, and so he rose to his feet and blindly followed Dumbledore until he was outside the stone gargoyle that was perched before the entrance.

"Lemon drop". Dumbledore's voice rang out and Harry allowed himself a small smile at the password to his office, despite not really knowing what was happening.

"So" Dumbledore began as he paced around the room "Are you going to tell me who you are or am I going to have to guess, and possibly assume the worst?"

"Professor, what's going on? You know who I am!"

"You seem to know me and at least one of the students here… but how?"

"Sir, are you feeling alright? I knew you all when I was alive."

"Alive?"

"Well, I'm dead aren't I? That's why I'm here, isn't it?

"As far as I am aware, everyone you have seen here are alive and well. So, I will repeat the question, who are you?"

"Harry, Harry Potter sir" Harry had given up trying to figure out what was happening, and so, had decided to just go along with Dumbledore, answering his questions.

"Potter you say…merely a coincidence or not?" This was muttered under Dumbledore's breath, quiet enough that Harry couldn't quite catch what was said. "How old are you?"

"17 years old"

"And you say that you're here because you died?"

"Well, yes, Voldemort cast the killing curse onto me, therefore I assumed that I am dead, however I don't know where I am if you say everyone here is alive."

Throughout Harry's words Dumbledore's eyes showed a flicker of surprise, possibly at the mention of Voldemort, or the fact that Harry actually said his name, before his whole face relaxed.

"Harry, tell me something, what year did you…die?"

"Erm 1998"

"1998, hmm interesting… You see Harry, at the moment the year is 1976, and because of everything you have said, I am inclined to believe that you have somehow been transported into the past.

"But, I should have died! Why am I here?"

"Did you notice anything else just before you, for lack of a better word, died?"

"No, I don't thi-Oh!" Harry's eyes lit up as he remembered the full details of what had happened that night. "There was a golden light that I think hit me as well as the killing curse, could that be anything?"

"It might well be Harry, it might well be." Dumbledore strode over to his colossal bookcase, and selected a couple of the books. "I'm afraid I don't have the time to look through these myself, and I do not know exactly what this 'golden light' looked like so would it be possible for me to give these to you to try and find what you were hit with?" With a nod of the head, Dumbledore continued. "For now though, I think it best if you are a student here. You'd be in your seventh year, so what subjects did you take?"

"I took Defence against the dark arts, charms, transfiguration, herbology and potions, sir"

"Ok, that will all be fine; I will create a timetable for you along with the rest. There's just the small matter of your name. Are you by any chance a relative of James Potter?"

"He's my father, but sir if you don't mind, I don't think I should tell you anything else about my future."

"Ordinarily, I would agree Mr Potter, however because this is an extraordinary case, I'm going to ask for details from your life, so I can try and calculate why you wouldn't die from the curse, because usually, it doesn't matter if you were hit by another spell, the killing curse overpowers all."

So, Harry told his professor about his life, starting with the prophecy and how his parents were killed and then up through his years at Hogwarts and ending with him standing defenceless in the forest with the feared green light heading towards him. He stumbled over some parts for the memories hurt, for example when he had to explain about what he could remember about his parents dying, the department of mysteries and Sirius, and then the Great Battle.

"Thankyou Harry, this has been most insightful" Throughout Harry telling him about his life, Dumbledore had had a thoughtful look on his face, as if Harry were some puzzle he was having trouble figuring out. "I have a theory about this, but I am reluctant to tell you incase I am wrong. However, don't worry, I will tell you when the time is right."

Harry felt his anger rise up at these last words from Dumbledore. How would he know when the time is right? He should've told Harry about the prophecy years before he eventually did. He should've told Harry about the horcrux living inside him years before he found out from Snape's memories. However, he forced himself to calm down, knowing him getting angry would not help, and would not change Dumbledore's mind about telling him.

"Because James Potter will know that there is no Harry Potter in his family at this time, I think it will be necessary to change your last name. How about Harry Jamieson? I also have no doubt that other pupils will be enquiring into why you have only just joined Hogwarts, so I think it best if you say that you were home schooled up until now, and wanted to come to Hogwarts for your N.E.W.T.s. Does that sound plausible?"

Dumbledore had said this speech in a massive rush, leaving Harry slightly bewildered, but hoping he had picked up the essential details. "Yes sir, but how am I going to think of an explanation as to how I came to be lying on the floor of the entrance hall, having just appeared out of thin air?" Having Hermione around meant that it was impossible to believe that you could apparate in or out of Hogwarts, as she frequently stated it, sometimes to no one in particular.

"Ah, yes, that does pose a bit of a question. I'm sure you'll think of something. I'm sorry Harry but I really must get back to organising my desk. Unfortuantely it has gotten so messy over the holidays. It was nice to meet you Mr Jamieson."

Taking this as his cue to leave, Harry started to head to Gryffindor common room, whilst desperately trying to think of a conceivable explanation as to why he just appeared in Hogwarts.

**A/N: Ok, I know I've said it before but slash in further chapters? Remus/Sirius, Remus/Harry or not at all? Please review :)**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"Something's not right Prongs, you saw him! First, he just appears out of nowhere, then he flings his arms around Moony here, and he looks exactly like you!" Sirius Black, had been pacing the floor of the boys dormitory for a while. James Potter, Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin were also sat there, however the latter was not paying much attention to this conversation, and instead was deeply engrossed in a potions textbook.

"And we're sure he didn't just apparate into Hogwarts?"

At this statement, Remus glanced up from his book, as if on automatic. "How many times James? You can't apparate in or out of Hogwarts! You know, all three of you should really read _Hogwarts, a History _once in a while."

"Yeah yeah Moony, why would we do that when we've got you around? You're like our own personal library walking around with us!"

"Thanks prongs…"

"Anyway, back to serious business, who do we think that kid is?"

"I'm just annoyed that I missed it all." Peter whined " I had to be in my tutoring for charms!" The others had explained to Peter what had happened, and, hating to be left out of anything, Peter wanted to know all the details, so that he could pretend to others he was there.

"Maybe he's a spy!"

"Not a very good one if he is."

"Well maybe he's an alien spy!"

"He still wouldn't be a very good spy, alien or not."

"Fine, what about a-"

The four of them were interrupted by a figure slowly creaking open the door to the dormitories. Harry was nervous about walking in there, worrying about how they would react, after what he had done when he first appeared. He was greeted with four pairs of eyes staring at him; his dad, Sirius and Remus all looked slightly intrigued about him, while Peter looked at him with fear, which Harry became slightly angry at. He had no doubt that it was mainly fear that caused the rat to go onto Voldemort's side and betray his parents.

"Er, hi I'm Harry Jamieson, and I'm a new student here? By the way, I'm sorry about earlier, a spell went a bit wrong that was supposed to take me to Dumbledore's office, and instead, well you saw where it took me." Smiling rather shyly, he began to unpack the few things he had onto his bed that had appeared with his arrival to the room, leaving the marauders to recollect themselves. Harry avoided the topic of when he hugged Remus, hoping they would do the same. There wasn't exactly a suitable explanation as to why he would hug someone who he's supposed to have first met that didn't make him seem mad.

"Hi, I'm James Potter, and this is Remus Lupin, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew. We're sorry about earlier as well, you just took us by surprise is all." Remus was the only one that noticed a subtle flinch and darkening of the eyes when Peter's name was mentioned, but thought nothing of it, and instead, went back to reading his book.

Sirius then intervened, not wanting to let James be the only one for Harry to notice. "Listen, Harry, we're known as the 'Marauders' around here, and are basically the best pranksters this school has ever known! We also know this school inside out, so all the hidden passageways, so any time you need something, chances are we'll be able to get it!"

Remus also looked up from his book to put in his input; "Yes, you may want to ignore Sirius and James, they're rather bigheaded, although James has calmed down a bit as he wants to seem more 'mature' for Lily-"

"Hey!"

"Oh, you know it's true Prongs." Sirius intervened, "Hell, you've even become head boy! Personally, I preferred it when you were cockier, it meant you got hexed more often, and it was always fun to see you trudge into the dorm, or even worse-the great hall, after attempting the ask Lily out to Hogsmeade. You'd always walk in with massive boils everywhere-

"- or when she stuck that babbling curse on you, and you couldn't answer McGonagall's question. She got so mad then," Remus joined in.

"Or when she made your teeth and nails grow really long."

"Or when she made sardines come out your nose for ages!"

After this last input from the werewolf, James shouted "OK, I REMEMBER!", and pummeled both Remus and Sirius with pillows, whilst Petter squealed with laughter in the background.

Harry left them to their bickering, smiling to himself at the mention of his mum. Back in his own time, he had loved an opportunity to hear about his mum or dad, stories about them, and now, here he was living it! He recalled that seventh year was the year in which his mum and dad finally get together, and as Remus had said, James had matured enough for her to give him a chance.

He lay back on his bed, and made sure that he remembered the list of six things which would hopefully avoid the marauders and anyone else from getting suspicious. He had created it on his walk from Dumbledore's office to the common room and he recited it mentally:

1. He is not supposed to know anybody of them- do not show recognition when seeing people

2. He does not know Remus is a werewolf, or that his dad, Sirius and Peter have animagus forms

3. He must call his father 'James'

4. Peter has not betrayed his parents yet

5. He should not know his way around the castle

6. The only thing he is and should know is that he is a boy named Harry Jamieson, who used to be home schooled and has come back to take his N.E.W.T.S

He should be able to relax and enjoy being here, without raising suspicion, providing he stuck to there six things. It had been hard not to kill Peter right on sight when he walked into the dormitory. He had had to remind himself that this was a time when he didn't follow Voldemort, and was just a rather annoying, chubby individual that laughed at any joke James made. Plus, deep down he knew that he couldn't change time, evenn if it may benefit him, it would probably be worse for many people.

Harry realised that he had already sort of broken number 5, for he had found the Gryffindor common room too easily for someone's first day at Hogwarts. He was just thankful that no one really saw him, and reminded himself to be more careful tomorrow.

Most people had told him that it was his dad and Sirius who were closest, and were the 'leaders' of the group, however when Remus would tell him about when he was at Hogwarts, he seemed to have been closest to Sirius. It was apparent to Harry as he watched them through half closed eyes that although James and Sirius were close, it was obvious that Remus and Sirius had a sort of bond, like Remus used to describe. Up until now, however, Harry hadn't realised what it was like, for example, right now they were huddled in a corner just talking, completely oblivious to anything else around them, whilst James and Peter were sprawled across their beds planning a new prank. In fact, it was almost as if… no, Harry thought to himself, Remus would've told him if they were together, like a couple. Besides, both his godfather and Remus were definitely straight.

Harry suddenly found the day catching up on him, and on the brink of sleep, he remembered all that he had been through in the past 24 hours. It was amazing, what had happened, because all his life he had wondered about trying to go into the past, even to get a glimpse of his parents, he had even gone as far as researching time-turnings after Hermione had showed hers to him in his third year, but there was a limit to how far back they could go. Until he or Dumbledore discovered how he could return to his own time, as he had resolved that he must do, Harry was determined to enjoy the time he had here. With that thought in his mind, he let himself drift off to sleep.

**Please read and review :)**

**by the way, I still haven't decided, it could go either way with pairings still.**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"Harry? Harry!"

"Wake up mate!"

Harry awoke with a start to find the marauders' head looming above him, not unlike the first time he had appeared in this time, and was embarrassed to find that his cheeks were wet with tears he had obviously shed.

"Wha-what?" He asked intelligibly.

"You were having a nightmare, sounded pretty bad from what you were yelling. Are you ok?"

Oh shit, thought Harry to himself. It would be just his luck for them to find out who he really is because of something that he was saying in his sleep, something which he had no control over. "What was I yelling?"

"It wasn't that clear to be honest, just odd phrases like "no!" and "I'm sorry!" Sorry for what? Do you remember what it was about?" Sirius answered.

" I, er, no not really" Harry managed to get out.

"Oh, ok, well we'll leave you to get back to sleep." James glanced around at the others, before thinking out loud, "You know it's funny, usually it's Moony that has the nightmares, it'll be a miracle if we ever get to sleep this ye-"

A glare from the werewolf shut him up pretty quickly, and James had the graciousness to look kind of guilty.

Harry had lied when the others had asked him whether he remembered his nightmare.

He had a lot of experience when it came to nightmares, and usually, he would be seeing into Voldemort's mind, watching as he mindlessly tortured and killed people. Harry had never been very good with occlumency, and suffered for that at night. He would wake up crying or shouting most nights. This one, however, was different.

He was holding the resurrection stone and was surrounded by Remus, Sirius and his parents. However, the look on their faces was different then what he had actually seen. They showed _repulsion, disgust_. He had no control over his body, and turned to his parents first. Together, they would spit out "You're the reason we died. If you hadn't been born, then Voldemort wouldn't have had to kill us, he only wanted you."

He then turned to Sirius, who had the same loathing tone to his voice "You're the reason I died. If it hadn't had to come and save you, because you stupidly believed Voldemort, then I wouldn't have died."

Harry was then spun round where he found Remus with a hard look on his face. He had opened his mouth to speak, but before Harry had the chance to hear the cruel words that were no doubt coming his way, he had been shaken awake.

Deciding there was no point attempting to go back to sleep, Harry reluctantly raised himself out of bed, got himself dressed and headed out to the common room to read a couple of the books Dumbledore had given him. It being 5.30 am, he did not expect there to be anyone in the common room, therefore he got a shock when he saw a lonely figure huddled in an armchair by the fire, looking lost in concentration into their book.

She had a cascade of fiery red hair that covered the majority of her face, and the features of her face that were uncovered were lit up by the dimming fire to illuminate a determined mouth and sparkling, emerald eyes. A gasp rose out of Harry before he could stop himself as he saw who this startling person was, loud enough to break the girl's focus from her book to look up at Harry in surprise. "Oh, I, er didn't expect there to be anyone down here, I'm sorry to have interrupted you."

"Oh that's ok, couldn't you sleep?" His mum's voice was gentle, soothing to hear.

"Yeah, I tend to be an early-riser though anyway."

"Me too. Sometimes I like to just come and sit here on my own with no one around to distract me, so I can read my book in peace."

"Oh, if you want I can go-"

"No! Sorry, I didn't mean for you to go, I don't mind, honestly. So you're the new student here, right? I'm Lily." She smiled at Harry, making him feel secure, and she seemed to have a motherly feel about her already, which comforted him.

"I'm Harry, nice to meet you."

"So how come you've just started Hogwarts now?"

Remembering the story he and Dumbledore had prepared earlier, Harry was ready to answer this question, "I've been home schooled up until now, but I wanted to come to Hogwarts to take my N.E.W.T.s. He frowned to himself, he didn't sound as believable as he had hoped, but he figured that people would believe it, because the truth was much more far-fetched.

Lily must've seen him looking a bit uncomfortable, and jumped to the wrong conclusion. "Oh I'm sorry, I'm guessing there was a reason you came down here so early, and here I am blathering on, asking you questions. It's a bit hypocritical of me really, sometimes all I want is a bit of peace, and then people come and interrupt me, like that _Potter_…" She trailed off, lost in her annoyance of 'Potter', in which Harry took to mean James Potter.

Wanting to hear more about his dad, he asked 'Potter? Do you mean James Potter?"

She was jerked out of thoughts, and seemed surprised that Harry was still there. "Yeah, that's the one. I'm guessing you've met him already, with him being in your dorm and everything.

"You know, I doubt James is really that bad. I obviously don't really know him but Remus and the others were saying that he's grown up more this year, being head boy and everything."

Lily sighed to herself, "Yes, I honestly don't know how he became head boy, I was so sure it was going to be Remus, even with his monthly prob-" She broke off, realising what she'd said to someone who wasn't supposed to know about Remus being a werewolf. At this point, Harry was conflicted. He knew exactly what she had been going to say and knew what it meant, so should he pretend like he didn't hear it, or ask her what she was going to say?

"Er, sorry, I didn't quite hear the last bit, what did you say?" He settled for a bit of a coward's approach, however knew it would be better, knowing she could never tell him what she was actually going to say.

"Oh, nothing, it doesn't matter. I tend to just mumble to myself sometimes. Bit of a habit really" She tried to pass it off, and soon they moved onto other topics, for example she told him all about Hogwarts and the people that were there. Harry was surprised at how many of the names he recognised; Frank and Alice Longbottom, although at the moment her last name was Prewett, Arthur and Molly Weasely, her maiden name was also Prewett now, Mary Abbott, who is Hannah Abbott's mother, and, of course, Snape.

It had seemingly left Harry's mind that Snape was the same age, and was in the same year as his parents during Hogwarts. It being seventh year, Snape and Lily's friendship would have been ruined, even though he was in love with her, and Harry noticed a pain in Lily's eyes when she talked about him. Although Harry knew she had never loved Snape like he loved her, he knew that they had been childhood friends, and used to be really close.

Their conversation ended abruptly as thundering feet running into the common room interrupted them. Without looking round, Harry knew who it would be.

"Alright guys?" He asked, trying to keep his annoyance of having his conversation with his mum broken off his face.

The four marauders stopped, seeing Harry and Lily clearly having just been talking. "Yeah thanks, just coming down to get some breakfast. Did you not go back to sleep last night?" Sirius hurriedly answered, after seeing James' face darken at the two of them having been alone in the common room for hours.

"Nah, didn't see much point. You ok James?"

"Fine." With that, James stalked off to the Great Hall, followed closely by Peter, and after a pause and an apologetic look, Sirius as well.

Remus hung back, "Sorry about James, he's just… well, you know the situation. I'd better go though." With a look similar to the one Sirius had given them, he made his way to breakfast with his friends.

Lily sighed, and shifted her attention back to Harry "I swear Remus is the only one that's decent out of the 'marauders'. I don't know why he goes along with their pranks sometimes, even though I'm pretty sure he's the brains behind the majority of them. I suppose I should be thankful for that though, he's the one that also reigns them in when they would go to far."

Harry smiled at her, "Thanks for this morning, I'm sorry I took up time if you wanted to read. I'd better go and see Remus and that, see you in lessons?"

"Yeah, see you." With that, Harry traced the footsteps of the marauders to breakfast, wanting to make amends with his dad.

"-hasn't been here five minutes and already he's making a move on Lily. He _knows_ I like her, and yet he still-"

James stopped as Harry entered the Great Hall and made his way to sit next to Remus, opposite James. "Listen, James" Harry began, "I don't like Lily in that way. I know you do, and so, I wouldn't act on it even if I did." In fact, on the way down to the Great Hall, Harry had been laughing to himself at how ridiculous this whole thing was. His dad thought that his son was hitting on his mum, and was jealous of him!

The rest of the marauders were silent, waiting for James' reaction to these words from Harry. Finally, the tension broke, and James answered, " Ok, I guess I overreacted a bit, it's not like she's not allowed to talk to other people. I'll take your word for it that you won't do anything with her, so thanks." He smiled, and Harry took it that he was forgiven, even if he did think he shouldn't have been the one to apologise first, as James was a bit stupid for reacting like that.

**A/N- I just wanted to say thankyou to all my readers and reviewers. I doubt I will be able to update for a while, as I'm going on holiday soon and then it's back to school, however, I will try and upload another chapter after this one. The next few chapters will probably be building up Harry and Remus' friendship, and probably Lily as well. Please review :)**


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Having had an early start this morning, Harry felt less awake than he would've liked for his first proper day of lessons. He looked at his timetable that he had been given at breakfast, and assessed which days it would be better to just stay in bed. Lucky for him, this was not one of those days, for he had: double defence against the dark arts, his favourite subject, double herbology and double charms. Other days were not so good, Harry thought, as he eyed warily at the double potions that filled several of the blocks.

"Hey, it looks like we're taking the same subjects." Harry looked round to see Remus peering over his shoulder at his timetable. "Come on, I'll show you where the classroom is, the others have gone on ahead." Remembering he was supposed to have no idea where anything in Hogwarts was, Harry dutifully followed Remus.

"So do James, Sirius and Peter take DADA as well then?" Harry wanted to know more about his dad and friends, even the details like what lessons they take.

"Yeah, James and Sirius want to become aurors when they leave here, and this is one of the subjects you have to take for it. We're not sure about Peter; he says he wants to become an auror as well, however he doesn't seem too convinced about it." Harry grimaced. He knew exactly what the rat would get up to once he leaves Hogwarts.

"What about you, what do you want to do in the future?" The question blurted out of Harry before he remembered who he was really talking to. As a werewolf, Remus wouldn't find it easy to get a job at all, with all the anti-werewolf laws, and Remus knew this.

"Oh, I, to be honest I er, hadn't given it a lot of thought. I suppose an auror would be interesting, but I'm- oh, here we are!" Remus found himself thanking whoever made the defence against the dark arts room so near to the where they were,

Remus walked over to where the other marauders sat, and Harry, feeling a bit unsure, followed him and sat himself down next to him, on the end of the row.

"That's Professor Dupe." Remus whispered across to Harry "He's not bad, he's only been here since the start of the year, but he's not a fan of the textbook which of course James and Sirius love."

"Ok settle down now class." Professor Dupe had the type of voice that held authority, and so he didn't have to shout to get the attention of the class. "Today, we're going to be practicing our duelling skills. I want everyone to pair up and attempt to get the other's wand without using the disarming spell. Is that clear?" After a murmured response from everyone, the sound of chairs scraping back and scrabbling to find a partner filled the room.

"I'll take on the new kid" James whispered to his fellow marauders, "We'll see how he can handle himself."

Therefore, Harry found himself paired with James, and from the wicked glint in his eyes, he knew that he would not go easy on him. He had been debating whether or not to use his full power during this lesson, but knowing that James would be using his, Harry was not going to hold back. It might be interesting, he thought with a smirk.

"Ok and bow to each other, that's it, and begin"

James started to fire a spell at him, but Harry was too quick for him. His wand fired spell after spell, leaving all James could do was protect himself against the jets of light that were being fired at him.

All of a sudden, Harry stopped, blood suddenly having drained from his face. He bent over, as if he couldn't get enough air in his lungs. It had all come flooding back to him, the duelling had reminded him of the War that had occurred in Hogwarts. Flashbacks began to start, just broken images; a green and gold light approaching him.

All of a sudden he was on the floor. Harry thought that he seemed to be making a habit of this, and it was becoming increasingly irritating. "Mr Lupin, would you mind escorting Mr Jamieson to the Hospital Wing please?" He just caught the last of Professor Dupe's words, before he staggered to his feet, waving off everyone.

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Sorry to have disrupted the lesson." He made to get back to his seat, but swayed dangerously, until Remus caught him.

"Yes, well, obviously." The teacher's heavy sarcasm was apparent. "Even so, Mr Lupin if you would."

"Of course professor." Remus helped him out the classroom before he stopped in the corridor, allowing Harry to rest against a wall. "Look" he said, looking at Harry with amber eyes, "I'm gonna guess that you don't particuarly want ot go to the Hospital Wing, am I right?" After a confused nod from Harry, Remus continued "To be honest, you seem ok now, and I don't know about you, but I hate going to the Hospital Wing because it just makes me feel so useless. So, you may as well just skip this class or something.

Harry had recovered from earlier, and was now looked at Remus with an apparent gratitude in his green eyes. "Thank you"

Remus smiled "Don't mention it, do you want to tell me what happened in class?"

"Oh, it was nothing really, the duelling set off a bit of a flashback of some painful memories." Harry's face was drawn, and Remus had enough tact to know not to push the topic any further.

"So, I may as well skip class as well, and just say I was helping you or something. Not that I think you need help or anything" He added quickly after seeing the look on Harry's face. "How about we just go for a walk to the lake or something?"

"Sounds good" A smile lit up both faces as they made their way through the winding halls of Hogwarts. It was almost like how things used to be between him and Remus, Harry thought.

"This is my favourite place to sit, I just feel so peaceful here, and in control." Being in control was obviously a big thing for Remus, and Harry felt saddened by the fact that one night a month he was as far away from being in control as could possibly be. He now realised just how huge the benefits would be for Remus once the Wolfsbane potion comes out.

"I can see why." And Harry could. The lake that had once seemed so dark in his time was now alive, the sparkles dancing from one side to the other. No noise could be heard, it was like being sat in a sanctuary, protected. The two boys lay back next to each other, neither really having to talk.

"Remus… are you and Sirius together?" Harry broke the silence with a question he'd been wondering about since last night.

"Me and Sirius? No, I mean we were at one point, but then something happened last year that made us think it would be better if we were just friends. Is that… ok?" Remus finished off, looking on the verge of nervous as he explained it to Harry.

"I- yes, I'm fine with it. But are you bisexual?" In the future, Remus married Tonks, and he had always told Harry that Sirius had lots of girls flirting with him, so he got the impression that both were straight. What if, by coming to this time, Harry had changed something, regardless of whether he told people the truth or not. What if when he returned to his own time, things were different? Or what if he was never able to go back into this time, and had to stay here forever, because Voldemort had technically killed him, he just hadn't died…

"Yes, we both are." Inwardly, Harry let out a sigh of relief. It was not that he was against that kind of thing, he was just relieved that he hadn't changed things by being here, at least not too much.

The silence fell again, but it was a comfortable silence.

"You know," This time it was Remus that broke the quiet, "the first time I saw you, I thought it was James playing a trick or something. You look a lot like him."

Harry was jolted from his thoughts. He knew there would be questions asked about his appearance, and he would've asked Dumbledore to put a glamour charm on him had people not seen him before he talked to him. "Yeah, a coincidence I guess" He shrugged, trying to act nonchalance, but he knew Remus was clever. A part of Harry wanted to tell Remus everything, but he knew that was out of the question.

"Ah here you two are! Skiving off lessons I see. I knew you'd be out here, Rem just loves this place." Harry felt a hand slap on his back before he turned to see Sirius giving him a wink as he plonked himself down next to them. " So, Harry boy, what was with you in defence against the darks arts? Was James just too much for you? Didn't really look like that, you were giving him a right thrashing!"

"Um, it was nothing really…" Harry sneaked a pleading glance at Remus begging him to try and change the subject. It was clear that Harry did not want to talk about it, so Remus quickly thought of something that would sidetrack Sirius.

"Harry boy?" It wasn't much, but luckily Sirius took the bait.

"I'm not sure to be honest, it just came out. Odd, usually I call James 'Jamesy boy'. It just seemed to fit, you know?"

"Er, sure padfoot."

"…and then you're Rem or Remmy, but Peter's just Peter, and Lily is James' girl-" Sirius broke off, interrupted by a snort from Remus. "I think this will be the year he finally gets her."

"I hope so, I can actually see them together, it's just getting her to agree to go out with him. Where are James and Peter by the way?"

"Oh Peter tried to cast a spell at me but it backfired, and was more powerful than intended, so James took him to the Hospital Wing. Oh by the way Harry, Dumbledore said he wanted to speak with you."

"Did he say what about?"

"Nope, sorry mate."

"Oh, ok, well I guess I'll see you guys later then." Harry frowned, annoyed at having this time with Sirius and Remus, but got up nevertheless to make his way to Dumbledore's office.

"You know, we should probably be getting back to lessons ourselves…" He could just make out Remus's voice trail away as Harry walked away.

* * *

><p>"I seemed to have received these." Harry was sat in a chair facing Dumbledore, separated only by a desk that was covered by several letters. "They all seemed to be addressed to you, and came flitting through the window not half an hour ago."<p>

"Professor? I'm not sure I understand. How can they be for me? No one knows me in this time."

"Well why don't you open them and find out?"

Harry grabbed the one nearest him and stared at the front of it:

_Harry Potter_

There was no address or anything apart from his name on it, and the writing seemed familiar. Having torn open the envelope, his eyes began to scan the first few lines before he looked up at Dumbledore in shock.

"Professor, what are these? How did they get here?"

"I think it's best if you took them to your dormitory and read them there, alone, whilst everyone else is in lessons. I'll ask the teachers to excuse you for today."

Still in a state of shock, Harry wondered back up to the now deserted dormitory, where he began to read the one he had already opened.

**A/N: Well, that's it for a few weeks, I hope you're enjoying the story! Bit of a cliffhanger with the letter I guess, but hopefully, that will keep readers coming back for the next chapters :) I'm enjoying writing this, and check out my the other story I wrote today about Remus and the Mirror of Erised! As always, thankyou to my readers and reviewers :)**


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

_**Still in a state of shock, Harry wondered back up to the now deserted dormitory, where he began to read the one he had already opened.**_

_Dear Harry,_

_I don't know what to say. I guess if you were here you'd be thinking that that was a first. I honestly think I'm still in shock. Even though you knew you would die you still went, and that was such a brave thing that I kept thinking that something might happen that would save you, to reward you for your bravery._

_It's been a few days since you died but a lot has happened. Yes, Voldemort did regain power, however he is weak now without the horcuxes. Neville killed the snake almost straight after he found out you had died. So Ron and I will destroy him._

_Speaking of Ron, it was his idea to do this, write letters to you, and anyone else that died. You'll probably see in his letter that he is in a lot of shock as well. Once the War had ended, the order, (what few members are left, although some others wanted to join) and any others that didn't want to support Voldemort had to go into hiding, and there everyone just fell apart. There wasn't a person who hadn't lost someone dear to them._

_Everyone misses you here._

_At least you're with your parents, Sirius, Fred and Remus now, that's what people keep saying, more to themselves than anything._

_Don't worry, Teddy is safe as well. He is currently in the care of Andromeda, but Ron and I will make sure we visit him often as we can. We'll tell him about all of you as well._

_Even though I know these letters won't reach you, wherever you are, it's nice to write them, and I can picture you reactions to everything. We're going to send all our letters away with our owls, and just see what happens._

_Lots of love,_

_Hermione_

Harry finished reading and felt numb. He had died? Picking up the next letter, he noticed it was from Ron, and after reading it through, realised that while he was having fun in this time, in the future, where he should be now, everyone was lost and in hiding, maybe fearing for their lives. The feeling of guilt overcame him, and so he rushed to Professor Dumbledore's office, grabbing the majority of the letters, but leaving a few scattered around on his bed.

"Fizzing Whizzbees." The statue sprung apart and Harry rushed on, completely forgetting to knock on the door, and so ended up breathless, looking into the deep eyes of Professor Dumbledore. He showed him Hermione's letter, and just like the Professor he knew, Dumbledore showed only a flicker of surprise, before understanding.

"Professor, these letters… they say I'm dead? In their time?"

"That's how it would seem yes. However, you are obviously not. I think it most likely that people, including Voldemort, believe you to be dead when in actual fact, you were just sent back in time. You obviously disappeared from that time, and Voldemort naively thought that would be good enough to say you were dead."

"And what about all that stuff about Voldemort regaining power? People are _dying_ and here I am, unable to help because I'm years in the past!"

"Yes, that is very unfortunate, from what you've told me I assume that this is the first time you've been unable to help people?"

"I-yeah I guess so. I just feel so useless here! Does that mean I'll never get back now?"

"Oh no, if I am able to send you back to your own time, then you will be able to pick at what time you go back to, providing it's within half an hour each way of when you disappeared. You would have to change time though. The real question is how to get you back. I assume with everything going on you haven't read much of those books?

A guilty nod from Harry confirmed Dumbledore of what he already knew.

"Well, you'd better get started then. Providing you want to go back at all?"

Harry looked up sharply to meet the Professor's piercing eyes. "What?"

"Well, if you wanted to that is. I presume that your friends would try and kill Voldemort if you didn't go back, however because of the prophecy you told me about I think there would be a higher chance of succeeding if you were the one to try and kill him. It's completely up to you of course."

"I, I don't know. I suppose I'll have to go back."

"Have a think about it for a while. Even so, I think it best if you keep researching that spell you were hit with, even if you don't need it. It may be useful for the future."

Dumbledore nodded his head and Harry took this as his cue to leave. The conversation had left him with many things to think about, but he figured he would have time, and so, tried to block it from his mind.

"Harry? What are these?" Harry froze in the doorway, mind racing at how he could get out of this one.

James, Sirius, Remus and Peter were standing near his bed. Sirius was clutching at one of the letters, and they were all looking at him with a puzzled, and slightly fearful, expression.

"Wha-what are you guys doing there?" Harry asked fearfully, a plan already trying to form in his head to explain the letters on the bed. Scanning the bed, he gratefully saw that the remaining letters were from people that he hadn't really talked to a lot.

"We saw this on your bed."

"Sorry, it was just open and my bed is right next to yours and…" Sirius handed him over the letter, and Harry apprehensively read it.

_Dear Harry,_

_I know that I didn't know you that well, but it was a shock to everyone when you died. I hope you're happy wherever you are, and you're with the people you love._

_Yours,_

_Dedalus Diggle_

"I- er, these were about my dad, I just brought them with me to Hogwarts. I was named after him..." Harry trailed off. He was terrible at lying and even thinking up lies, so this was the best we he could do. He felt bad saying a lie of this scale, however he guessed it was partly true, his dad did die after all.

"Oh god, sorry mate, we didn't realise. Just saw the name Harry and, well, we couldn't quite work it out." He saw their the suspicions drain from their faces and be replaced by guilt, which showed that they believed it, and Harry felt a wave of guilt hit him as well. It would be so much easier to just tell them the truth, wouldn't it?

"It's fine, seriously." Harry stuffed the letters in his pocket then, which was already filled with the invisibility cloak.

"So, we've all got a free period now, you wanna head out for a bit?"

"Yeah, why don't we play a little trick on Snape?"

"No!" Harry blurted out before he could stop himself. "I- I just don't think that's a good idea at the moment, I mean Lily would want you to be more mature, you said." Snape's memories were still fresh in his mind.

James pondered this for a while, before coming to the conclusion that Harry was right. "That's true, I've said I'm becoming a new man this year and that's what I will do."

"A new man?" Sirius and Remus laughed hysterically at this, but James just ignored them.

"How about we just hang outside for a bit then?" From the corner of his eye, Harry could tell that Remus was happier with this new suggestion for the Remus from his time told him that he used to be quite good friends with Snape, but he couldn't stop James and Sirius from pranking him that much. That was one thing he used to regret, because he didn't know that Snape was only a spy for Dumbledore, and he confessed to Harry one day that he was worried that it was Snape's time at Hogwarts that caused him to be a death eater.

"Sure" All five of them set off outside, Harry trailing behind a bit.

"Come on Harry! Take your time, why don't you!" With a smile at the four figures waiting for him, he hurried along.

Maybe it would be easier, but it probably wouldn't be better. Things would be different and he wanted to enjoy this for as long as it could last.

**A/N: Thank you for reading :) Don't really like this chapter that much, not enough marauders in it! Not entirely sure where I'm going to go with it now, because I could make it only a couple of chapters longer to tie up everything, but I'd like to introduce more characters, make the friendship between Harry and Remus closer, so I'm likely to do that :) Sorry if there's slower updates, attempting to update for another story as well. Please review with your thoughts! Say if you like/ don't like it.**


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"Oi! You lot! Get up, or you'll miss breakfast!" Remus and Harry were usually the first to awake out of the five boys, and every morning, without fail, they had to do everything in their power to get the others up. They had great fun with it, shooting water at them, taking pictures of them asleep and putting them around the school, even levitating them to the common room which was full with people, leaving them hanging in mid air in just their shorts (or in Peter's case, pyjamas with teddies on). Needless to say, they had a few smirks and giggles directed their way for the next few days after every trick.

"Come on," Remus said in low tones to Harry "We should just leave them to it today, see how they like being late." So, the two of them went down to breakfast, leaving the oblivious schoolboys still snoring away, most likely for another few hours.

However, as soon as they reached the Hall, they both stopped, for the atmosphere in the room was tense. At the top, Dumbledore was standing, but all seemed to be in silence, pupils all looking at him with anticipation.

"I felt that it would be best to inform you of some news I have recently become aware of." With a jolt, Harry realised that Dumbledore had begun talking, and his powerful voice commanded every attention in the room. "There have been a series of werewolf attacks in an area not too far from here. You shouldn't worry about it, but I thought it best that you are aware of the situation. "

Besides him, Harry could feel Remus' whole body stiffen. He longed to comfort the boy, but knew he couldn't. The frantic whisperings that filled the Great Hall seemed to increase in volume, and Harry just knew that it would be like roaring in Remus' ears.

Harry turned to his left to say something, _anything,_ to Remus, only to find the boy had disappeared, the sound of footsteps leaving a trail leading back up to Gryffindor common room. He sighed, and raised his gaze back up to Dumbledore, who met his eyes. With a slight inclination of the head from the professor, Harry realised that wanted him to follow Remus, and see if he was ok.

He found the boy sat in an armchair by the fire, one where Harry had spent many an hour with Ron and Hermione. When he saw Harry he stood up, sensing he would want to talk.

"Hey." Harry gave a short smile at Remus, who half-heartidly returned it "You ok?"

"Yeah, I guess what Dumbledore said scared me a bit." That was clearly not the reason and both of them knew it, however Harry was still showing ignorance about the matter.

" I can't stand werewolves like that." Remus closed his eyes and leant back against the cool wall, and Harry realised that he probably shouldn't have started that way. "I- I mean," he quickly carried on to get to the point of it, "you get one or two werewolves like that, who probably follow Voldemort-" Cue a slight flinch from Remus "- who create this stereotype that all werewolves are like that, when in fact, many are just normal people, forced to submit to one night of being something else. That's what makes people scared of them all, because they only hear about the one or two that do kill or bite people on purpose."

Remus was now looking at him with apprehension in his eyes, and Harry imagined the type of thoughts running through his mind: _Is that true? Can I trust him? Or is he just saying this because he knows what I am and wants me to admit it before telling the whole school? _He hoped it wasn't the latter.

"So, you really think that?" Remus timidly asked, leaning forward slightly, in which Harry took to mean he may believe and trust him.

"Yep. I had a friend who was a werewolf once, and he was… well he was great." It was Harry this time who closed his eyes and leant back.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because.. because you said you were scared of the attacks, so I was trying to reassure you?"

"Oh, well thanks. Wait, you said you 'had' a friend? What happened?"

For a while Harry remained silent, eyes closed, having what seemed to Remus to be an internal conflict with himself before speaking. "He, er, he died a while ago. He was killed actually by someone who supported Voldemort, because he was trying to stand against them."

"I'm sorry. Were you two close?"

"Yeah, we were."

A couple of thumps from above them shocked them from the conversation. They both looked towards the stop of the stairs, where they found three hurried pairs of feet sprinting down them. James was trying to tug his already done up tie over his head, but it wouldn't fit so it was stuck like a headband, Sirius' shirt was half open, and although he was trying to do it up, he was mismatching the buttons so he had run out to pair with the three remaining holes, and Peter was the worst. Toothbrush still in hand he was hopping around trying to get the other foot into his trousers.

All three of them saw Harry and Remus in the common room, and came to a stop at the same time, almost comically skidding slightly.

"Did we miss it? Did we miss breakfast?"

* * *

><p>The day then proceeded as normal, and Harry tried to distract him in any way he could when the talks of the werewolf attacks surfaced. Remus was a bit twitchy through the day, and kept to himself more than usual, but Harry hoped that what he had said to him will've raised his spirits slightly. James, Peter and Sirius were slightly pissed off that they hadn't been woken up and had missed breakfast, so at lunch it was just him and Remus.<p>

"Hi Remus! Can I speak to you for a minute, without your friend Pott- oh it's you Harry! Sorry!"

Harry smiled, "Hi Lily."

"Sure Lils, just give me a sec, yeah?" Remus ran up to his trunk to fetch his wand and a book that needed returning to the library.

"So, how are you Lily?"

"I'm ok thanks. What about you? Liking Hogwarts?"

"Oh yeah, it's great thanks."

He was about to ask her about James, but before he could, Remus reappeared "Ok got it! You mind if we take a quick detour to the library, I've just got to take this back, ok?"

"Yeah sure." Lily smiled at the two of them, before taking Remus' arm, leading him out the common room.

"I just feel a bit bad about leaving Harry there. I'm not sure where the others are, and I didn't exactly want to just leave him there on his own."

"Look, you clearly want him to come along, so go and get him, I don't mind… I don't think. I'm joking! Can he be trusted?"

"I'm pretty sure he can be. Thanks Lils, I won't be a minute." Lily sighed as Remus ran off, at least Harry was a better influence on him than James and Sirius. She had always felt very protective of Remus, even before she knew he was a werewolf. He just had that look about him that gave her a motherly feel towards him.

Harry hadn't wanted to impose on Remus and Lily, however when Remus came and asked him if he'd like to join them, he agreed because he was curious, although his friends would describe him as just plain nosy.

"Ok Harry, what we're going to show you, you can't say anything to anyone else. It's where Remus and I come to talk about things in private, away from people."

They came to a stop on the seventh floor, at a place which seemed familiar to Harry.

"Welcome to the room of requirements" Lily said, as a giant door appeared. Of course! Harry stifled a laugh as they trooped through to a cosy room filled with two sofas, a couple of arm chairs and a fire roaring away in the corner.

"We found this room about a year ago, and it will appear when a person is in need of it. It can transform into anything you want it to, will provide anything you want." Naturally, Harry already knew all this, as Neville had discovered it in his fifth year, but it was still a miracle that he was here with his mum and a younger version of Remus that he never knew.

"Ok," Harry said, "but why did you choose for it to be like this?"

"Well, we wanted somewhere comfortable, so we basically thought of the common room without any people!"

"So Lily," Remus began after they'd taken seats in various places, "what did you want to talk about?"

She sighed. "It's nothing really, I just thought that me and sev were getting closer recently, and then I see him with those slytherins, you know the ones that are going to join up to You-Know-Who as soon as they get out of here. I know me and sev aren't close anymore, and I definitely can't control who his friends are, but I just worry when I see him with them!" Remus shuffled over slightly to hug her, and Harry felt a bit out of place. He shuffled slightly in his seat, until Lily emerged from Remus' arms.

"Oh god, Harry, you barely know me and here I am saying all these stupid things." Harry felt a rush of affection for his mother. "And Remus" she carried on, "You have bigger things to worry about at the moment-"

Remus looked up at Lily sharply, eyes begging her not to say anything else. Their eyes stayed focussed on each others for a while, as if having a private conversation.

Finally, Remus groaned noisily, put his head in his hands and let out a muffled "fine!"

"Harry, Lily thinks you can be trusted, and for some reason, I just feel that you can be as well. So, I've got something to tell you." He took several deep breaths before standing up, and then sitting back down again.

"Harry I'm a… right, Harry I'm a…" His pleading eyes turned to Lily but she just put her hand on his back and whispered that he could do it. Meanwhile, Harry was ecstatic. Remus trusted him enough to tell him he was a werewolf! He hadn't even told his father, Sirius and Peter this, they had had to work it out for themselves.

The words suddenly came out all in a rush and if Harry hadn't known what Remus was about to say, he wasn't sure he would've caught it.

"Harry, I'm a werewolf."

**Yay for Remus :) Not quite sure how Harry should react at the moment, any ideas? Obviously he's not going to act in a bad way, because he already knows, I just want something funny?**

**If in the future, if you see updates that don't have any additional chapters, I'm sorry but I will probably be rewriting some of them because there are a few which I really don't like, and some that are quite short.**

**Oh and tell me if you want Sirius, James and Peter to make more of an appearance? Or any characters really!**

**Answering reviews:**

**-THANK YOU for all suggestions, I will bear them in mind and may change a few things**

**- I have decided (finally!) that there will be no slash, purely because I love just writing Remus x Harry friendship**

**-I'm sorry, but I can't save Snape from going to the whomping willow, because that didn't happen in the marauder's seventh year (which is when this is set) and I'm trying to keep this as close to the book as possible.**

**-I'm sorry Snape hasn't been mentioned more, I think he will be in the next few chapters**

**-There will be a lot more chapters, didn't realise how much more I have to write about!**


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"_Harry, I'm a werewolf."_

For some reason, Harry felt himself unable to move. The time ticked by and Remus took this as a bad sign. He was just about to head towards the door, when an arm reached out and stopped him. Remus looked up to see the face of Harry with a grin on his face. 'Wait, a grin?' Remus thought to himself.

Harry saw his friends discomfort, and reassured him.

"I'm unbelievably glad you told me because, to be honest, I had an idea that something like this was happening, although obbviously I wasn't 100% sure."

Remus looked confusedly at Harry. "But, how did you know? It took the others over a year to find out." A cough from the corner of the room made Remus grin sheepishly at Lily. "Well, Lily figured it out in first year, which I can say surprised me greatly. But anyway, yeah, how did you know?"

"Because I'd had a friend who was a werewolf, I did a lot of research on them, about their characteristics and seeing if anything could help them. You just kind of fitted the characteristics, and it confirmed my suspicions when you started to look paler, and kind of weaker tonight. It's the full moon tonight isn't it?"

Remus looked at him in awe, amazed that this was really happening. But another part of him still wasn't convinced. This had happened before, when he was younger, a brave boy had said that he still liked him, asked him questions, and then ran off, shouting all around town about him. They'd had to move after that. Well, this time he would not be so naïve. He stayed close to Lily, waiting out for Harry to continue.

"So…basically, I don't care. Ok?"

Remus looked hard at Harry, before coming to the realisation that he meant it. So, with a nod he went up and hugged him, whispering his thanks in Harry's ears, as Lily watched with a smug smirk on her face.

* * *

><p>Judging by what Remus looked like the next morning, the full moon was one of the best he'd had. He was back and getting ready for breakfast before Harry had even woken up. He'd been awake for a lot of the night, but there was silence coming from outside, which Harry took as a good sign. When Harry asked about how it was, Remus smiled and said it wasn't that bad, probably due to the fact that he'd just told Harry that he was a werewolf and he didn't mind. Things like that relax the wolf.<p>

As the days passed, the worried talks of werewolf attacks began to die down, much to Remus' relief. Harry was spending the majority of his time with Remus and Lily now, which he was thoroughly enjoying. In fact, because of this, he was completely oblivious to the looks he was receiving from James, Sirius and Peter as he and Remus went off together. It was only when he overheard a conversation between them, that he felt guilt.

"Look, Remus, we don't mind Harry, he seems all right, it's just we've barely seen you this week!" That had to be James, thought Harry as he listened from outside the door to the dormitories, and if he knew Sirius, it would be him that spoke next.

"Yeah, we miss you! Who else are we going to copy our homework from?"

"I'm not sure that's the best way to convince me Padfoot, but I do not what you mean. I haven't been spending a lot of time with you, and I'm sorry. So, in return, you can pull whatever prank you want, and I won't disapprove of it. In fact, I'll add to it!"

Sirius and James were shocked. When Remus wanted to, he could pull the _ultimate prank_. His brains were what the others needed to pull it all together, otherwise it sometimes feel apart, resulting in them being caught. He added a twist to the plan, something neither Sirius nor James would've thought to do.

"I have two conditions though: first, no pranking Snape-" There was an almighty groan from Sirius after hearing this, "- and second, Harry hangs around with us."

Harry felt a brief jolt as his name was said. For a moment, he had forgotten where he was, and realised he was still sat outside the dormitory. He quickly decided to hear their reactions to the conditions, and then enter before anyone saw him here.

To his relief, Harry heard that they had accepted it, (even if Sirius didn't particularly like the first one) and so, he pushed open the door, trying to act casual.

"Hey guys." Harry went to go sit on his bed, but James motioned him over.

"Come over here! Remus has agreed to help us pull a prank, so we're thinking of ideas. You got any?"

They were asking him for ideas! He sort of regretted not pulling more pranks when he was at school, and so, tried to think of some the Weasley twins pulled off.

"How about putting an ageing spell on everyone? Or, I don't know, set of a load of fireworks in the Great Hall?"

The marauders all shared a glance, before Remus said, "You know that's pretty good. I reckon there's a way to combine them as well, but I'll need a while to plan."

"Ok, well lets clear out and let Remus plan then!"

The marauders all filed out towards the common room, and James whispered to Harry "This is a rare occasion, Remus wanted to plan, and he prefers to do it alone, without distractions. It would be annoying if he wouldn't make them so bloody brilliant! Believe me, this prank will be good."

"So," Sirius began, "we'll probably be here for a while. Is anyone up for a game of exploding snap?"

James agreed, and they set about playing, with Peter joining James' team, and Harry joining Sirius'.

"So Harry, tell me something about yourself. Anything at all!" James' eyes bore into Harry's as if he could tell who he really was.

"Umm ok. I sometimes wish that I could be normal." Harry was sick of being 'the boy who lived', even though technically, he supposed he couldn't be called that anymore. But in a way, he could. This whole situation was confusing him.

"Normal? You seem pretty normal to me, but I'm sure we can change that." James gave him a punch on the shoulder before trying to concentrate on the game again.

"Go on then, James. Something about you?"

"Ok, but this is a complete secret, right?" Harry leaned forward in anticipation. "I am in love with Lily Evans."

Everyone burst out laughing at this, even some of the other people in the common room who had overheard him. "James! I meant something proper!"

"So you mean people know about that? Damn. Anyway, something proper, umm I hate the thought of being known as 'the rich one'. Just because my family are pretty well off shouldn't mean that's all I am."

"Shit James, even I didn't know you hated it that much!" Sirius looked surprised, and then decided to make a confession of his own.

"Ok, something about me. I'm guessing saying something like 'I hate my family' is too obvious?"

"Yep!"

"In which case, I'll settle for saying that I am so glad I was sorted into Gryffindor. I know everyone knows that but it just needs saying again."

"My turn!" Peter cried just in time with the cards exploding in their faces. Once they'd cleared up, he tried again. "My turn! I'm not sure how I got into Gryffindor. My whole family thought I'd be in Hufflepuff."

James and Sirius exchanged awkward looks, whilst Harry felt his fists clench and rage bubble under the surface of his skin. Why the hell that hat thought to put him in Gryffindor he had no idea. Still, he forced himself to calm down, and pretend that he didn't hate Peter. This was before he crossed sides anyway.

"Peter, you know that's not true. You have Gryffindor qualities."

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

"…Well, you were brave that night when we were going to the kitchens, and McGonagall was about to catch us, so you jumped out of our hiding place to give yourself up?"

"You pushed me."

"Still counts."

"Hmph."

"Anyway, now we've done a round of confessions, and I'm pretty sure we've forgotten about the exploding snap, so what shall we do now?"

James answered, "I say, we do another round of confessions, but-" he added as he saw Sirius' face, "this time, we centre around the subject of girls, and guys" he added, winking at Sirius. "So, who wants to go first?"

"Sure I will." Harry hadn't expected anything less from Sirius than to volunteer first. "You obviously know about me and Remus, all of you, as I'm guessing Remus told you Harry? Yep, thought so. And then you know about Marlene, well if you didn't Harry, now you do. But, there is someone you don't know about. You know Kate, the hot Ravenclaw?"

"Kate? How did you get a Ravenclaw?"

"…In a broom closet."

They all started laughing again, and so received some odd looks from the surrounding people.

"Well that's really classy Pads. Who's next?"

"I'll go!" Peter spoke up, eager to join in. "I once kissed Mary?"

"Nice one Peter! She's actually pretty hot. James, your turn!"

"Ok, we swore we wouldn't say _anything_ but last night, ok you guys ready? Lily and I-"

They didn't notice Remus standing in the doorway until he spoke. "It's ready."

Peter, James and Sirius all drew in a collective gasp and stood up as one. James threw a wink at Harry before rushing into the dormitory with the others, and Harry followed slightly behind, wondering what the hell was going on.

* * *

><p>"So, everyone clear on the plan? I'm sorry it's not better but you know the moon's just been and everything…" James and Sirius looked up at Remus with warning glances aimed at Harry, but Remus just smiled. "Guys it's ok, he knows. But thank you anyway."<p>

"Bu-but how? You told him didn't you! You had us work it out for ourselves!"

"Yeah, but Lily was sort of behind it, and Harry told me about how his friend was a werewolf as well, so I knew that I could trust him. No offence guys, but I didn't really know you in the first year, and you're all purebloods therefore you would've heard all the bad stuff about them."

"But you must have known that I wasn't like my family." Remus smiled at Sirius, reassuring him.

"Yes I did. Since the start of second year I was thinking about how to tell you and then you just figured it out by Christmas, which by the way, I'm sorry for acting very dramatic about. I knew that you wouldn't really tell everyone, or I hoped at least."

"_Anyway, _when are we going to pull this prank off?"

"Hmm, lets see, it's got to be when everyone's in the hall, and soon preferably, else I think Sirius might explode with anticipation."

Everyone turned to look at Sirius, who was bouncing on the bed, giggling to himself and looked in danger of having a heart attack.

"Nah, I'm pretty sure that's normal Sirius." Harry and Remus snorted at James' comment, and Sirius cried out in indignation. "But if you want it soon, why not just do it today?"

Remus thought for a while, before agreeing that the best time to do it would be at dinner because that was the time when everyone, minus a few people (or nerds as Sirius called them) that were doing work, would be in one place.

When the time came for dinner, Sirius was going insane. He wouldn't sit still, and instead was bouncing around the whole room now. James and Peter looked like they were on the verge of joining him, and even Harry felt excitement within him. It was just Remus who was as calm as ever, and Harry could see why he got away with things, and why every teacher thought he was innocent. With the exception of one professor, who despised werewolves, and so always managed to give Remus a hard time over something or another.

The marauders and Harry sat down in their usual places at the end of the Gryffindor table.

"Do it now, DO IT NOW!"

"Sirius, for god's sake, keep your voice down, I'll do it in a minute. Is everything set up?"

After a nod from everyone, Remus responded with a cough that signalled he was ready. They let Dumbledore finish his short speech before they ate, but the instant he sat down; Remus whispered a long line of words whilst making complicated wand movements.

It started with four fireworks slowly making their way from each corner of the room, each the colour of one house, and met in the middle with a pathetic bang. There was silence for a while, and students began to laugh at how rubbish that was, and that the marauders weren't up to their usual standard.

"Luring them into a false sense of security." Remus whispered to Harry.

Dumbledore stood up, most likely to say something about the pitiable fireworks, when chaos then commenced.

Everything from huge great rockets to tiny sizzlers filled the Great Hall. It was apparent that the rockets were split into four groups, red and gold for Gryffindor, yellow and black for Hufflepuff, blue and bronze for Ravenclaw and green and silver for Slytherin. As soon as the students realised that they were being chased by fireworks of their house colour, everyone got up at ran for it, although most hid behind doors so they could watch the rest of it.

The unlucky ones that were hit were instantly transformed with an ageing spell, and as a result, looked about 100. In one instance, Lucius Malfoy was hit, and Narcissa stopped to laugh at his now grey hair and shrunken body. Unfortunately for her, fortunately for everyone who was finding it amusing, a green firework took this opportunity to jab her as well, and she collapsed in her boyfriend's arms as old as he was. The looks on their faces were too much for Remus to handle, and he lost his calm façade, and joined in with laughter.

Gryffindor students were not being chased, and puzzled, they looked around for the fireworks of their house colour. They found that the Gryffindor fireworks had rearranged themselves to form the words 'Gryffindor rules', before exploding and leaving those words imprinted on a wall. That was the point when everyone started cheering, and even a few Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were smiling at it.

Harry sneaked a look over to the teachers table to see how they were reacting. Professor McGonagall, being in Gryffindor, had not been affected however Professor Dupe had not been so lucky. He sat in his chair, old and withered, but thankfully, with a smile playing on his face. In fact, he started to resemble Dumbledore when a trick has been played, so sat next to each other now, they could be twins.

Eventually, the fireworks came to an end, and students slowly walked back into the hall to inspect who had been hit. Some had run, or walked painfully, for the dormitories, not wanting to face everyone in their elderly state. The room was filled with laughter and chattering, and Remus, Harry, James and Sirius sat right in the middle of it.

In fact, it took them a while to realise that Peter had run for it when the fireworks started.

"But Peter, you knew the plan! You were never going to get hit because you're a Gryffindor!"

"I know, but I couldn't think straight with all the banging and everything." The boy still looked petrified, so James took him up to the dormitory, whilst the others awaited their punishment.

"Are you nervous about what they'll give us? It could be a few months detention." Remus asked Harry in low tones so the deciding teachers did not hear him.

"It was worth it." Harry replied.

**A/N: I know this chapter's a bit rubbish, just wanted to get James, Sirius and I suppose Peter in the story a bit more. Any ideas for the next few chapters? Thankyou for the reviews on how Harry should react :)**


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

_"Are you nervous about what they'll give us? It could be a few months detention." Remus asked Harry in low tones so the deciding teachers did not hear him._

_"It was worth it." Harry replied._

"Right, you shall each receive a weeks detention, and lose 10 points each from Gryffindor. Do not give me that look Black, just because I'm in your house does not mean I will go easy on you. You have defaced school property."

Harry tried desperately to hide his smirk as he glanced over to the wall where 'Gryffindor rules' was still very clear, even though several of the teachers were trying to remove it. From the corner of his eye, Harry saw Sirius trying to do the same.

"Ok, you may go." Professor McGonagall concluded "See me for the start of your detentions next week, and tell Potter and Pettigrew that they're included in this."

"Will do!" Sirius sounded oddly happy as he called behind his shoulder whilst they walked back to the dormitory. "Cheer up guys! A weeks detention isn't too bad, and at least it's all of us together. There's nothing worse than having a 3 hour detention on your own…"

Harry gathered from this that Sirius had had his fair share of detention, and his thoughts went to his own. The many an hour he had spent in detention with Snape, and then the ones with Umbridge. Those were the worst. When he clenched his fist, you could still see the scar spell out the words 'I must not tell lies', a permanent reminder of that awful year. So, a week's detention wouldn't be that bad, and he doubted it would be boring.

They had just reached the common room, and met up with James and Peter again when Harry remembered something.

"Wait a sec, James! What were you going to say yesterday about you and Lil- nmph!"

Harry found a hand being clamped over his mouth and then felt himself being dragged upstairs to the dormitory.

"I cannot believe you nearly just blurted that out to the common room!" James's face was staring at Harry, looking like twins apart from brown eyes meeting green eyes.

"Sorry! So what were you going to say?"

"_Well, _a couple of nights ago, when I think you, Remus and Lily went off somewhere, Peter, Sirius and I went to the library- hey we do that you know!- and then it turns out Peter was going to meet Mary, the Hufflepuff girl he mentioned earlier, so off he went and then it was me and Sirius. Only _then _he was called off for some detention for something or other, honestly I lose track of them, and I was on my own, in the library, like a complete idiot."

"Just get to the point James."

"Well, suddenly, Lily appeared to bring back a book in there, and she saw me sitting there and she came over! SHE came over to ME! But that isn't even the best part, I mean your mind will be blown when I tell you."

"So tell me then James."

"Alright, calm down I'm getting there. So, we're talking and that, and then she says it's getting late and so I say I'll come back to the common room with her. We're just stood outside the fat lady portrait when I have the overwhelming urge to ask her out again. I was really thinking about it because I haven't asked her out for a while and she seemed to be nicer to me now than ever before, so I didn't want to ruin it. But I asked her to Hogsmeade next weekend anyway, and she said-"

"No?"

"Yes! Wait, no she said yes!"

"Wait, did she say yes or no?" James failed to see the glint in Harry's eyes that showed he was just joking with him.

"She said YES! But I had to promise to keep it a secret for now, something about not wanting to be the schools gossip."

"Umm James? I'm not sure that sounds so good, you keeping it a secret…"

"I know, that's what I thought as well, but then I thought- don't complain! I'm going out with Lily Evans!"

Harry couldn't help but smile at the amazed face on his father, but the whole secret thing worried him. Not that he had a lot of experience in that department, but he was pretty sure that that was a bad sign." So, he decided to try and find Lily, and ask her about it. Although he would have to find some way of asking her tactfully.

* * *

><p>"Lily…"<p>

"Yes Harry?"

"Why did you want the fact that you and James are going to Hogsmeade next weekend to be kept a secret?" Screw tact.

"Wha-he told you didn't he?"

"Yes, and I don't really know why it should be a secret, to be honest."

She sighed. "You don't understand, you're new here but for seven years I have hated James. He's been arrogant and just generally irritating. Bu then, this year, he's changed, like he's matured. He doesn't hex people randomly anymore, or not that I've seen, apart from a few days ago he hadn't asked me out, and I know it hasn't been long since the start of the year, but I just got this feeling, you know? God that sounds unbelievably cheesy and I hate that stuff. But the point is, everyone thinks I hate him, and to turn around and say that actually I'm going out with him would just be hypocritical."

"Oh, I see. Personally, I think you should just come out and tell people because I think James will start to worry about it."

"I'll think about it. Thanks Harry, for letting me know this."

"Anytime." It occurred to Harry that he was playing a part in getting his parents together. The whole situation was getting confusing again, and so he tried to forget about it, a technique he had been using more frequently recently. Yes it made him feel guilty, but he wanted to be a bit selfish just for now.

However, that afternoon, when Sirius and James were practicing quidditch, Peter was watching them, and he didn't feel like joining Remus and Lily in the room of requirements, Harry found himself alone in the common room, and that's when he found all his guilt come flooding in.

How could he stay here when others was suffering where he was supposed to be? His hands automatically felt for his pockets, and pulled out Hermione's letter. Rereading it, he found his eyes pricking with the beginning of tears, but hurriedly wiped them away incase anyone saw. Would it be possible to reply? Just a quick letter, to say that he was ok and explain the situation. Surely, if the letters managed to get to him, then he could get letters to them.

Running up the stairs to fetch a quill and some parchment, he sat down and had a think.

_Dear everyone_

_This may come as a bit of a shock but_

_Dear the order, _

_Don't worry about me_

_I'm actually alive. I'm not sure how but I've been transported into the past_

Soon, there was a mountain of crumpled up parchment next to him, ink around his mouth from where he'd put the quill in his mouth to think and he still couldn't for the life of him think of what to write. How do you put a situation like this into words of a letter? Also, if it did manage to get back to his time, there was no certainty that it would reach a member of the order, it could reach Voldemort, and telling him that he was actually still alive would not be the best idea.

So, Harry decided to keep it brief and cryptic.

_Dear everyone,_

_I got your letters, thank you so much to all but you have jumped to the wrong conclusion. Although it may seem like that's what's happened, I'm not. I'll be there as soon as I can to explain better, as I'm not sure if this letter will be intercepted, or if it will get to you at all._

_Love to you all and I miss you all too_

Should he write his name? No, too risky.

_Mini prongs _

He sighed, hoping it would be enough to convince them he wasn't dead and once he had glanced over the letter, he saw that although it would impossible to understand if it was intercepted, it would also be hard to understand to Hermione, or any one else. But still, it was the most he could say.

"Hey Harry!"

Harry quickly shoved the letter into his pocket and greeted James, Sirius and Peter.

"Hi guys, have fun playing quidditch?"

"Yeah it was good. Only _someone_ decided to cheat by confounding me." James shot Sirius an evil glare as he spoke.

"Did not! I can't help it if you're bad at quidditch!"

"I'm the best in the year thank you very much!"

"*cough* second best *cough*"

"You wish." They both seemed to realise that Harry was still in the room and turned to him.

"What about you then?" James directed the question to Harry.

"What about me?"

"Well, do you play quidditch?"

"Oh yeah, I used to play it loads, but recently, I don't know, I wanted a bit of a break from it."

James and Sirius both took a sharp intake of breath.

"Yo-you want a break from it?"

"Why?"

"I'm not sure. New place and all that I guess." It was true, Harry did feel like he wanted a break from quidditch, at least for a little while. Obviously he would play at least one game with them, just for the experience he never got to have.

It wasn't until later on that he managed to get away and post the letter. It took a few minutes for him to decide whether to send the letter to Hermione or Ron, and in the end decided on Hermione, hoping she would rationally evaluate the situation before burning the letter, like he had a feeling Ron would do.

* * *

><p>Since sending his letter off, Harry had been slightly twitchy to say the least, especially when the morning post came, when he would desperately search for any sign of a reply. His friends had twigged that something was wrong, but were unsure, especially when Harry said he was fine when asked. James and Sirius assumed it was because of the detentions starting tonight, but Remus thought otherwise.<p>

This particular morning would mark a week since he sent off the letter, and he was starting to resign himself to the fact that he wasn't going to get a reply. In fact, he highly doubted they even got his letter. So, he wasn't even watching the post as the owls flew through the hall. He only noticed the letter because it landed right on the top of the piece of toast he was about to put into his mouth.

"Er, Harry? I think you've got a letter." Remus smirked at Harry as he removed the letter from his mouth.

"Really? I hadn't noticed…"

Joking aside, Remus was surprised to see Harry receive a letter. He had never seen the boy get anything, and so, was intrigued to see what it was. However, Harry simply pocketed the letter, and carried on with his breakfast, although at a slightly faster pace.

"You going to read the letter?"

Harry froze for a second, before carrying on eating. "Not right now, I want to finish eating first."

Thje marauders glanced at each other warily but said nothing.

**A/N: Thank you to ****PoppiiD**** for reminding me about the letters! Hope this is ok as a response? Any thoughts on the story would be appreciated :D**


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

It had taken Harry all day to shake off the marauders so that he could read his letter, and then, when the time did finally come, he was too scared to open it. Sat on his bed, he willed his hands to open it. What if it brought bad news? Or wasn't from Hermione at all?

'Come on!' He told himself, 'just man up and open it!'

Closing his eyes, he tore open the envelope and let the letter fall onto his lap. Widening his gaze so that he was peeking slightly he quickly glanced at the name at the bottom, and sighed in relief. Hermione. Taking a deep breath his eyes rose to the top of the letter where he began to read it properly.

_Dear mini prongs,_

_I must say, your letter confused me. The things you know make it seem like you are him, but it's impossible. Everyone said you had died, how can that be wrong? _

_Don't worry about letters being intercepted; no one is bothering with that anymore. So, before I believe you, I think I'll need some proof of who you are, because honestly, this is very hard to believe._

_Hope I'll receive a letter soon_

_Hermione_

_P.S. If it is true, then you should know that everyone is still ok_

Trust Hermione to be so rational, Harry thought to himself with a smile, it was so like her, and reminded him how much he missed her. And thank god everyone was ok still. He pulled out his quill and some parchment and began to scribble a letter back, writing as fast as he could incase the others came back.

_Dear Hermione,_

_I'm trusting that this is you and you were right about the fact that no one would intercept the letters, because I'm about to tell you everything. Believe me, this is going to be slightly hard to believe._

_Voldemort never killed me. Another spell hit me at the same time the killing spell did, and somehow I ended up at Hogwarts in 1977. With my parents, Sirius and Peter. God knows how I haven't killed the rat yet. Honestly, it was hard to get my head around it, but I'm trying to keep everything a secret and as much as I want to, I know I can't change the future._

_I'm having no luck researching the spell here, so maybe you could help? It was a golden light, and I'm afraid that's all I know about it._

_Tell everyone I miss them, yeah? And that I'm sorry for leaving them all. I hope you're ok, just don't do anything stupid (not that I think you will, but maybe just remind Ron?)_

_Love, Harry_

_P.S. Snape's here as well. Yes, it is weird._

Looking over the letter, Harry deemed it acceptable, and had no idea whether she'd believe him. So, now he just needed some proof of who he was. Something that no one except him, Hermione and Ron knew about… he'd think about it later.

"Harry, come on! We're going to be late for our detention with McGonagall!" Remus' head suddenly peered around the corner of the room, startling Harry. Quickly folding it into his pocket, he jogged along behind Remus, slightly apprehensive about what McGonagall would make them do.

* * *

><p>"So, I want you to clean this entire room, from top to bottom, showing you the effects of damaging school property." McGonagall smirked to herself before sweeping out the room, closing the door sharply behind her.<p>

The occupants surveyed the room. It was the result of a first year's potions class aka a disaster.

"What the _hell _were they trying to make?" Sirius asked disgustedly as he peered nervously at a piece of green slime on the ceiling that threatened to fall on him. Everyone turned to Remus for the answer, but he simply shrugged.

"I honestly have no idea," he said, " surely all they would be doing now is brewing a cure for boils, which the worst thing that can happen is that it produces a small cloud of green smoke but this…"

Remus didn't need to finish his sentence, for they all knew what he meant. The room was filled with multicoloured bits of slime, the occasional puff of smoke kept appearing from random places, and the ceiling was covered in dust that whenever someone moved, a cloud of it would just fall.

"I bet McGonagall added a load, just to spite us!" James moaned as he began scraping at the walls using some sort of metal plate that they'd each been given, trying desperately not to touch any of it.

"Nah, I've seen those first years. Running around everywhere, squealing in their high pitched voices, I reckon they could create this." Sirius worked himself into a state and started furiously scrubbing at a table.

"The first years really piss you off don't they? But you were like that at one point, we all were."

"True, true. Peter's still like that."

"Hey! Just because I'm over here doesn't mean I can't hear you!" Peter was in the corner, supposedly cleaning a table but Harry thought that he was just trying to get out of any cleaning.

Harry thought back to his first year. Was he like that? Probably not, there were too many things going on for him to be running around… although he did do a lot of running, and he was terrible at potions. Not like Neville though, who managed to _get _boils when brewing the cure for boils.

"Look lets just get on." Remus spoke up, "It shouldn't take too long, and then we can get out of here."

_Splat._ A glob of green slime whacked Remus in the side of his face. He slowly turned to view the others, giving them all his 'suspicious eye' as the others called it. They all feared the eye, as they knew something deadly was coming.

"Who. Did. That?"

There was a silence in the room, before all members excluding Remus, exploded into a fit of laughter. James and Sirius pointed to Harry, who was stood there smirking at the glaring face of Remus, just watching as the slime slowly dripped down to the floor.

"You are so dead." Without warning, Remus grabbed whatever was covering the table nearest him and threw it with all his might at Harry. However Harry ducked at just the right moment, and so, Sirius got a face full of black dust.

Another stilled silence occurred for a split second, before everyone starting throwing anything they could get their hands on at the closest person. The air was filled with all the colours of the rainbow, as well as the shrieks of laughter and satisfaction as they hit a friend.

"Take that-ow!"

"Hahahaha- hey! Ok, who threw that one?"

"My face! It's ruined!"

"I'll make it better for you then Sirius. Here, have some of this slime to cover it even more!"

"Bastard!"

"BOYS! WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON HERE?" McGonagall had appeared what seemed like nowhere, her eyes popping out in disbelief and anger.

"Here we go…" Whispered Sirius.

* * *

><p>"All in all it wasn't that bad, I'd say. Just the usual 'never have I been so disappointed' and 'you should know better now that you're seventh years' and stuff like that." Sirius was trotting up the stairs with a gleam in his eye. The others were less enthusiastic.<p>

"Sirius, we got another load of house points taken away from us, and another weeks detention. Plus, in case you hadn't noticed, we are covered in, well, I honestly don't know what it is! How can you be so upbeat about it all?"

"Because it was a fun detention!" The others groaned, but Harry didn't join in.

"I'm actually with Sirius on this one. The detentions I've had in the past have been a lot worse than that."

"Wait, what? I thought you had been home schooled?"

The realisation of what Harry had just said hit him. 'Crap, crap, think of something!' he thought to himself. The marauders were all looking at him, so he just had to say something, anything.

"Oh erm, didn't I say before? I spent a year at a muggle secondary school, to 'get the experience' apparently. I'd learn magic in the night, so I didn't fall behind but it proved too much work so I dropped out." Phew.

"Really? What was it like there?" Sirius and James were both fascinated by muggles, not really knowing much about them at all, and so, Harry had to improvise slightly about what it was like there, basing it on whatever Dudley would say about it in the summer holidays. From that, Harry had thought that secondary school sounded like hell, especially if there were people like Dudley roaming around it.

"Well, they obviously don't have lessons like charms and defence against the dark arts so-"

"They don't? Why not?"

"Sirius you idiot, because they're muggles!"

"Oh right. Sorry Harry, carry on?"

"Anyway, instead they have lessons like biology, which I guess could be similar to herbology, chemistry which is a bit like potions, maths, history, geography, psychology, things like that."

"Wait, psychology? What's that?"

Harry wasn't entirely sure; he'd just heard Dudley telling his friends about how he'd beaten up a kid after his psychology class. "I never took the class but I think it's something to do with the brain, and how people react. I'm not entirely sure."

Harry was so in depth telling his avid listeners about a muggle secondary school and the sort of lessons they had, that he failed to notice Remus' famous suspicious eye being aimed in his direction, before he walked off to the dormitory.

**A/N: I'm so sorry I haven't updated in ages! I know this is a really short chapter as well, the next one will be better I promise. If people are still reading, then please tell me what you think of the story :)**


	11. Chapter 11

_**Chapter 11**_

The room was silent, and pitch black. As Harry lay on his back facing up to the invisible ceiling, he found himself smiling to himself, regardless of anything else that was happening right now, in this time and when he was originally from. A sniff from the right of him caught his attention, and he turned to try and see who it was coming from, but the lack of light prevented him from doing so. There were a few more sniffs, before silence.

Harry rolled to his back again, although not entirely satisfied that it was over. His suspicions were confirmed when he heard a muffled shriek followed by a lot of rustling and creaking from the bed next to his. He jumped out of bed and began to creep towards the bed in which the sound was coming from. It seemed to be coming from Remus', and another scream, louder this time, assured him of that.

What had James said? "Usually it's Moony that has the nightmares." Poor Remus, this sounded like a bad one as well. He opened the curtain that was hanging around the bed to wake the boy up, but recoiled in shock when he saw him.

This was no ordinary nightmare, this much Harry could tell. He'd had some pretty bad ones in his time, but surely nothing this bad? It was hard to recognise Remus in the state he was in, for he was curled in a ball, but with every small shriek he would stretch out suddenly, as if in pain. Sweat was pouring off him, yet he was shuddering as though he was outside in a snowstorm.

Harry realised that he'd been transfixed watching Remus when he should be waking him up, resulting in him feeling guilty and so began hurriedly set about shaking him awake.

"Remus, Remus come on, wake up!" Harry was shaking his shoulders, except his flailing arms kept knocking him back. All of a sudden, Remus sat bolt upright, whacking his head onto Harry's.

"Owww," Harry moaned from the floor where he had fallen.

"Mmph." He looked up to see Remus slowly coming to, and stood up slowly, so as to avoid any dizziness the head injury might have caused.

"Remus? Do you want to go get changed?" Harry helped Remus out of the bed, handed over some clean pyjamas and ushered him in the direction of the bathroom, which he staggered into tiredly. James, Sirius and Peter had barely stirred from their sleep, leaving Harry to help Remus down to the common room where they would be able to talk properly. He let Remus wake up a bit, before sitting down himself and talking to him.

"Near the full moon then?"

"Yep. Tomorrow night."

There was a bit of a silence.

"I'm sorry." Remus broke the silence, "It's just-"

"Don't apologise! You have nothing to say sorry for. Let's just move on, yeah?"

"Ok, fine, but I am sorry."

A glare from Harry shut the werewolf up pretty quickly.

"But anyway, guess what? Lily finally said yes to James!" Harry wished he could get a picture of Remus' face right now; it was just too hilarious for words.

"You're…kidding right? I mean, she told me she was starting to like him but I figured she'd say yes when we were out of Hogwarts or something!"

"Haha nope! But she is trying to make him keep it a secret, which for obvious reasons he doesn't want to do, but he won't complain about it because he doesn't want to risk losing her. So I went to talk to her about it."

"What did she say?"

"She said she'd think about, so I'm really not sure if she'll agree to go public. The Hogsmeade weekend is in a few days so I don't know what will happen."

"Bu-but she said yes! I still can't get my head round it!"

"I'm not sure James can either," laughed Harry.

"What are you two girls nattering about then?"

Remus and Harry turned to see Sirius and James make their way down the stairs.

"Where's Peter?" Remus asked

"Still snoring. There's no waking him up until he's had his full amount of sleep, even if it means missing a lot of school."

"How come you're awake though? I mean, usually it's the same thing with you."

"Well, although it might not have seemed like it at first, we did hear Remus having a nightmare. But, unfortunately, we're becoming more used to it, so we actually wake up later. I know it sounds like a rubbish excuse but it's true and Remus I'm so sorry for not waking up."

"It's ok," Remus smiled at the two boys to show it really was, "Harry woke me up. I guess he's not used to it yet." There were a few small laughs at that, but James and Sirius still looked uncomfortable.

"So," Harry attempted to lighten the mood, "has anyone got anymore pranks lined up soon?"

"Well, James had this good idea the other day, which I'm not going to mention now, you know, don't want to give the game away and all that, but Remus, will you-"

"No."

"Not even-"

"No."

Sirius sighed. "Fine, but I wanted to speak to you anyway. Can we go back to the dorm for a few minutes?"

The two of them stood up and left, and Harry realised that the invitation applied only to Remus, and they wanted to talk alone for a while. James must have realised this too, for he stayed where he was, slouched across one of the sofas. Harry realised that this was the first time he'd been on his own with his father since he'd been there, and frowned to himself. He tried to subtly assess what James looked like, taking in all their similarities, which were many. In fact, as far as he could tell, people weren't exaggerating when they said the only difference was the eyes. He should've really been trying to find more out about him while he could, and so, used this as the opportunity.

"So, James, obviously you play quidditch. Chaser right? Are you any good?"

James smiled cockily. "Yeah I am. I'd suggest that we have a match or just a race against each other, but that wouldn't be fair on you."

"Oh yeah?" Harry raised his eye brow almost comically high, a skill he'd learnt to use against Draco that infuriated him. "Right, later today, you're on. And I'll remind you of this conversation when I'm waiting for you at the end."

"Pft, like that's ever going to happen, I'm the school's best chaser!" 'And I was the school's youngest seeker for a century', Harry thought. It was just a shame he didn't have his firebolt, but then that _really_ wouldn't be fair.

-I must show you it, but you can't tell anyone, ok?" Harry suddenly became conscious that James was speaking, and he must have spaced out again when thinking about his firebolt. He nodded, trying to think of what he could be talking about, but just decided to go along with it. The instant James brought it out of his pocket; Harry knew what James was on about, the shimmering material that slid out onto the sofa made it obvious.

"The invisibility cloak!"

James looked impressed. "So you've heard of them then? Yeah, this one's been in my family for generations. You hear about them fading with age, but for some reason this one hasn't, not entirely sure why. It's pretty good though isn't it?"

His invisibility cloak! That's what he could use as proof to Hermione! Harry decided that if he did need one whilst here, he could simply use James', problem solved. When the others went to get breakfast, Harry raced up to the dorm to fetch his invisibility cloak, the one thing he'd brought with him to the past. Surely this would be enough? He decided to read through the letter again, and add a few things to it.

_Dear Hermione,_

_I'm trusting that this is you and you were right about the fact that no one would intercept the letters, because I'm about to tell you everything. Believe me, this is going to be slightly hard to believe._

_Voldemort never killed me. Another spell hit me at the same time the killing spell did, and somehow I ended up at Hogwarts in 1977. With my parents, Sirius and Peter. God knows how I haven't killed the rat yet. Honestly, it was hard to get my head around it, but I'm trying to keep everything a secret and as much as I want to, I know I can't change the future._

_I'm having no luck researching the spell here, so maybe you could help? It was a golden light, and I'm afraid that's all I know about it._

_I am enclosing my invisibility cloak to prove that it is me. You know that it is the only cloak that will not wear off with age or spells, so you can try if you want._

_What else can I say to make you believe me, for you must believe me! You're the Draco punching, troll fighting, 'cleverest witch of our age' so if you can't do it, no one will._

_Tell everyone I miss them, yeah? And that I'm sorry for leaving them all. I hope you're ok, just don't do anything stupid (not that I think you will, but maybe just remind Ron?)_

_Love, Harry_

_P.S. Snape's here as well. Yes, it is weird._

'That should do it. Maybe. Worth a shot anyway', Harry thought to himself, as he set off one of the school's owls with the package. This time, he wouldn't await the next letter, but would carry on with his life here, avoiding the suspicion he felt sure he picked up last time. There was the full moon tomorrow night in which Harry needed to help Remus through. Of course he couldn't help him like Sirius, Peter and his dad did, but he tried to help the following days. In fact, could he make Remus some Wolfsbane? Does he remember the ingredients? If he could just get into Slughorn's office, it might all come flooding back.

* * *

><p>"James, is it ok if I borrow your invisibility cloak for a while?"<p>

"Yeah sure, what for?"

"I can't say, not yet. Sorry James, I'll let you know if it works out!" No use in getting their hopes up if he can't remember the ingredients, Harry thought.

He hurried down the corridors, avoiding making any noise when approaching the roaming teachers, and slipped silently into the storeroom.

Stood in the middle of the cupboard, being surrounded by bottles and jars overwhelmed Harry slightly. It looked a lot more crowded now than it did in his time; Slughorn was obviously less organised than Snape. However, once he got going and started to read the labels, he knew exactly what he was looking for. He started grabbing a few things, a few bottles here and a handful there, and then, most importantly the Wolfsbane. It wouldn't be ready for this full moon, and Harry cursed himself for not thinking of it sooner. All thoughts about whether this would change any of the past did not enter Harry's mind, he was just so happy to be helping his friend.

* * *

><p>Harry had just gotten back from setting the potion to brew in the room of requirements when he felt himself being dragged outside.<p>

"James, James! Where are we going?"

"You'll see. Here, take this!" James threw him a broomstick that obviously belonged to the school, and although Harry was happy to have the familiar feel of one in his hand, it wasn't the smooth feel of the firebolt that he was used to. He grinned at James, now knowing what he was planning.

"What are the rules?"

"We have to race from here to that quidditch hoop. Sorry about you having to have a school broom, but if you're as good as you say you are, you won't have a problem, will you?"

Harry felt the common rush of competitiveness and adrenaline fire up inside of him, and kicked off hard once Remus (who had been dragged there to do this job) had said to go. James was good, really good, Harry could tell that by seeing his skills and technique as he expertly swerved an oncoming tree, and he was ahead of Harry at the start. However, Harry managed to get control of his broomstick and pulled it so that they were neck and neck. It seemed very tense, and he could just about hear Remus and Sirius calling from down below.

Putting all his energy into flying he inched his way in front of James, who by the look on his face, was maddened by this, and as a result he too concentrated and pulled ahead. The quidditch hoop was looming fast, and neither of them were giving in. They crashed through different hoops with a photo finish end, and so, looked to Remus and Sirius for the results.

"Well?" Harry and James both shouted at they lowered down to the ground which seemed miles below them.

Remus and Sirius looked at each other, as if conferring, and then as one, they yelled back.

"James!"

"Harry!"

"What?" Sirius and Remus shouted, glaring at each other, while James and Harry met in the air, started laughing and shook hands in a mocking manner.

"I guess you have to be able to fly pretty well to keep up with me." Feet now firmly on the ground, James and Harry wondered over to the two boys arguing.

"Harry, it was definitely you that won! You know that it's true James." Sirius glared at Remus, but it was more of a joke glare now.

"Nope sorry Harry, it was James that won!" Remus retorted.

"It was Harry!"

"James!"

"Shall we go?" James put the question to Harry, and he agreed, walking off to the common room and leaving the bickering duo behind.

**A/N: Hope you like this chapter :) I updated a lot quicker than last time and it's longer too! Tell me if you want anything mentioned in the next few chapters, or just generally what you think of it!**


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

A distant howl pierced Harry's ears. He imagined the scene in the shrieking shack; Stag bounding, tall and proud, dog running, barking and growling, rat scampering, nipping in and out of hidden holes and werewolf, fierce and powerful, yet vulnerable and sad. The pack would respect the werewolf, yet keep him in check, protect him from damaging himself, and fight him if he felt the urge to. Then there was Harry, useless and confined to the room.

He sighed, and moved away from the window in which he had desperately been searching out of, for any signs of a shaggy tail just appearing, or the antler of a stag peeking out of a corner, but there was nothing. Remus had told him that the full moon was likely to be rough tonight, as earlier on, Dumbledore had announced that there had been another werewolf attack on a young girl nearby, and he was panicking. More than panicking, Remus had seemed on the verge on a breakdown when Dumbledore had told the school, and it had taken a couple of hours of comforting from the marauders and Harry, to calm him down just in time for sunset.

The whole world suddenly seemed empty, and for what was maybe the first time, Harry wanted to go home, his proper home. His dad, Remus, Sirius and Peter, they were all fine, Harry had been aware for a while that he was getting in the way of them. It wasn't like there was any point to him being here, he couldn't change anything, he was just, well, wasting his life slightly.

He must have dozed off, for when Harry heard a final, strangled howl that seemed to be half-human, the first rays of sun rise were beginning to penetrate the room. He rushed to the window just in time to see three weary figures climb clumsily to the roots of the Whomping Willow. James brought his invisibility cloak from out of his pocket, and threw it over them, with what seemed like aching arms. The only sign of them from then on was the main door opening just wide enough to let three 17 year olds squeeze through, and then it banged shut.

Ten minutes later there were four boys passed out with tiredness on their beds. Although Harry had not been with them, having stayed awake nearly all night, he felt just as dead as they looked, and was therefore one of those that had collapsed. When the alarm to get up went off the room was suddenly filled with abuse, groans and the creaking of beds as everyone rolled over.

"Come on guys." Harry finally moaned, even though he was still in his own bed, "you lazy things need to get up."

"Hypocrite." Muttered Sirius, although he did make the valiant effort to sit up and stretch rather over exaggeratedly. "Come on, if we hurry, we'll have time to visit Remus in the hospital Wing before breakfast."

This just made the others groan even louder, but they got up nevertheless. Harry heard James mumbling "have to get up to see Remus. Have to get up to see Remus," as he attempted to button up his shirt, and felt exactly the same.

The four boys eventually stumbled down to the Hospital Wing with 15 minutes to go before breakfast, armed with chocolate that would hopefully take part in cheering Remus up. Harry noticed that the smile Remus gave them all increased dramatically once he saw they were holding Honeyduke's finest. The only reason he didn't feel offended was because he knew how much the poor boy loved his chocolate. Even in his time, Remus always had a block in his pocket which he would snaffle some and then shove it into his mouth when he thought no one was watching.

"How are you feeling mate?" Sirius and James' eyes were scouring Remus' face to see how bad the damage was.

"If I'm honest guys, it was quite bad. I think it's the stuff about the werewolf attacks and all that, it makes the wolf angry, well, angrier than usual. Do you know how I got this bruise right across my stomach?" Remus slowly and stiffly lifted his top to reveal a giant, purple coloured bruised that stretched in a line horizontally across his middle and was rapidly swelling.

James looked rather guilty at this." God I'm sorry, I didn't realise it was that hard. I had to use my antlers to push you away from Peter, otherwise I think you might have eat-"

"Shut up!" Muttered Sirius, elbowing James in the side.

"Otherwise I might have eaten him," finished Remus, the smile long disappeared from his face.

"I doubt you would have done!" Squeaked Peter from where he'd been eyeing up the chocolate. "I'm pretty sure it was my fault anyway, I'd managed to corner myself in a place where there were no holes to run into!"

"Come on Peter, it's not you who turns into a monster every month."

"What?" Every voice that was crowded around Remus' bed was flung at him with this one word, as well as all eyes staring at him with a mixture of disbelief and anger that he should think of himself like that.

"Remus," James growled. "You. Are. Not. A. Monster. Repeat that?"

"Wha-James it's ok, I know I am. Look at what the other werewolves in the country to do people- they attack them! They either kill them or turn them into one!"

"You are not like them, and you are not a monster. Repeat it!"

"I'm not a monster." Remus dutifully whispered, although he didn't seem convinced of it.

"We'll have to talk to him later about it," murmured James to Sirius, who responded with a curt nod.

Looking at his watch, Remus realised that the 15 minutes were up. "Go on guys, you need to go have breakfast, I'll try and make lessons later. And thank you so much for last night, as always." The others bid their goodbyes, promising to visit Remus later, and left the room. Harry went to follow them, when he was called back by Remus.

"Harry, do you mind just staying for a sec? I just want to talk to you." He seemed to be unable to look Harry in the eye, in fact, he looked everywhere but Harry, and he kept biting his chapped bottom lip with perfectly white front teeth.

"This is the first time you've seen me after a bad moon. So, obviously, I don't blame you if you don't want to be friends with me, or, I don't know..." He trailed off nervously.

"Remus, if I didn't care when you told me you were a werewolf, you really think I'd care just because of this? My friend that I told you about, he had some bad moons too and I really wanted to help him in anyway I could, so I would help him the next morning if it was needed." Harry debated with himself about whether to tell Remus about the Wolfsbane potion that was currently brewing in the Room of Requirements for him, but decided to wait until a week or so before the next full moon.

Remus finally looked at Harry and gave a tired but grateful smile. Seeing this, Harry understood that Remus had very little energy, and waved goodbye to him before catching up with the others who had thoughtfully waited outside for him.

Remus joined them in the lessons after lunch, looking a little worse for wear and walked with a slight limp, but it was clear that Madame Pomfrey had healed him amazingly. Sirius, who had them this month, handed him his notes from the lessons he'd missed, and Remus took them appreciatively, eyes turning straight to the pages, not wanting to fall behind in any subject.

* * *

><p>The following day was the day of the trip to Hogsmeade had arrived, and, typically, it had snowed during the night. Harry hated snow. Nobody likes rain, so how come when it freezes it's suddenly amazing? To him, snow was worse than rain, it was so cold and wasn't even that pretty, for when it was on the ground, people just walked in it, turning it into brown slush. However, that particular morning, even Harry had to admit that it looked stunning. The grounds of Hogwarts were covered in a thick layer of snow that reflected the rays of sunlight bursting through the flawlessly blue sky. A few eager first years had started making a snowman in the corner, and it seemed to Harry that it resembled Professor Slughorn, although he supposed it could just be a fat, short snowman.<p>

It reminded him slightly of one of the first times he had gone to Hogsmeade, when he had first found out Sirius was his godfather, and heard that he betrayed his parents. That had been a particularly low point for Harry, although obviously things changed once he found out it wasn't him after all.

"I'm going to Hogsmeade with Lily! I'm going to Hogsmeade with Lily!" James' head suddenly appeared around the curtains which surrounded Harry's bed; however, it promptly disappeared when Harry threw his pillow at him, yelling at him to shut up. All the same, Harry could still make out the distant shouting from James in the common room, until a 'shhhh!' from Lily finally shut him up for good.

So she still hadn't told people that they were going to Hogsmeade together. She hadn't taken Harry's advice. Disappointment washed over Harry and before he knew what he was doing, he had grabbed Lily's arm and taken her up to the boys' dorm.

"What are you doing Harry?"

"Why have you still not told people that you and James are going together today?"

Lily suddenly became very flustered, and her cheeks gained a pink tinge, but Harry still didn't give in.

"Well," she finally answered, "I didn't- just not yet? I will do, I just want to see how today goes. If it goes well, then yeah I'll tell people, but if he's still the arrogant prick he was a few years ago, then I would feel so humiliated if people knew I'd given in to him when he was just the same."

"Oh I see." Both were quiet for a moment, before Harry carried on. "Well ok. But I assure you it will go well, because I think he has changed."

"How would you know, you didn't even know him last year." Lily shot back sharply, before looking down and biting her tongue. "I'm sorry, it's just I am worried about this."

"I know, just see how it goes, yeah? I reckon James will have something lined up for you." Harry then left Lily with a look of horror on her face, chuckling to himself.

With Remus still recovering from the last moon, he was struggling slightly with walking, particularly because the snow was so deep, but he leant on Sirius for some of the way. James and Lily were waiting behind until the majority of people had gone before they set off, and then from what James had told him, Harry remembered that James had set out a picnic for the two of them on a hill just a bit out of Hogsmeade. He was pretty certain that Lily would love it, and James had respected the fact that Lily wanted them to be a secret for now.

Harry, Sirius, Peter and Remus mooched around the shops for a while, picked some stuff up from Honeydukes before sitting down on a nearby bench to eat it. They were content sitting in silence, chewing on chocolate when they suddenly saw James and Lily run past, hand in hand.

"Was that-?"

"Yup."

Their four faces were complete shock.

"But I thought she-?"

"Yup."

"Well that's just changed everything!"

Sirius had his plotting face on, and unusually, so did Remus.

"So I'll take James…"

"And I'll take Lily!"

"Er, what?" Harry finally asked.

The two boys looked at each other and laughed. "When James started liking Lily in oh- second year I think, Remus and I made a pact that if they ever got together, I would take the piss of James non-stop and Remus would do the same to Lily. There was also a mention of pranks involving them together which I assume we're still doing?" Sirius questioned Remus.

"Of course!" Remus said with a wicked edge to his voice.

* * *

><p>When he got back, Harry saw the familiar snowy owl perched skilfully on his window ledge. When she saw him, she flew over to his shoulder, and bent her ruffled head, enabling him to take the pristine letter from her beak. She nestled into his neck for a brief second, before flying through the window. Harry had no idea how this letter thing was working, how were the owls going back and forth in time?<p>

Ripping open the letter, his eyes automatically flew to the end of the letter. _Hermione. _Smiling, he settled down on his bed, head propped up against the wooden headboard and feet stretched out by the blanket at the end.

_Dear Harry,_

_I consulted the rest of the group about your letter, and for me, it was the invisibility cloak that proved it. A few people did try spells on it, just to check, and they were found futile against it. I hope you don't mind that I kept the invisibility cloak. As James has one, I presumed it would be unlikely if you needed it, and to be honest, we may need it over here._

_It's not going so well. In fact, as a precaution I don't think you should write anymore letters, just incase. You don't have to worry, none of the letters have been intercepted, but it's just for the future, because who knows what will happen next. Unfortunately, not much has changed since my very first letter to you, the order is still in hiding, but we're slowly but surely recruiting new members._

_I'm working on that spell, and I'll let you know if I find anything. I won't bore you with the books I've researched but it's a lot. But don't worry I won't give up._

_I hope you like it there, must be nice to see Remus and Sirius again, and get to know your parents. I have got to remind you Harry, you can't change anything! You must want to get rid of Peter so much but I urge you not to. It's just the way it has to be, and I'm sorry about that._

_If you did want to change one thing, however, you could maybe make the marauders not too harsh to Snape? Although, that may change things in the future too… No, it's better that you don't do anything, sorry._

_Everyone misses you, good luck there,_

_We'll keep fighting,_

_All our love, _

_Hermione and the order xx_

To his embarrassment, Harry felt tears prick his eyes, and he blinked rapidly to wash them away. Harry didn't think he'd ever cried more than he had in these weeks; it had just been such a ride of emotions, and he was not the type to get emotional. It was a constant rollercoaster of happy and laughing hysterically to crying over a letter, wanting to stay in this time to desperately wanting to go home.

Storing the letter in the Room of Requirements, along with the potion which was still bubbling away, he joined the marauders who were sat in the stands by the quidditch pitch. The pitch was deserted, as the snow had meant no quidditch practice, and many people were still out in Hogsmeade anyway.

"Hi guys." Harry sat down on the end next to Remus, who was fortunately looking considerably better than he was earlier, and was almost back to his still pale but healthy colour.

"Hey, come and join in, we're just taking the mick of James and Lily. Or 'Jily' as I like to call them. Or do you prefer 'Limes'?"

"Definitely Jily. So _Jily, _your date with Lily went well then? You wanna say what happened?"

"It went amazing! Well, what happened was I had just led her to the picnic that I had planned, and it was all set out nice and properly, you know, I was going for the mature shit again, but then…"

**A/N: As always, thank you for all the response I've been getting for this story, it is helping! I hope you like this chapter, sorry not that much happens in it! Please read and leave a comment of what you thought :) Oh, and also, I have changed a few things in previous chapters, but I don't think it's that much, not particuarly necassary to read what I added in before this chapter. Enjoy!**


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

"_So Jily, your date with Lily went well then? You wanna say what happened?"_

"_It went amazing! Well, what happened was I had just led her to the picnic that I had planned, and it was all set out nice and properly, you know, I was going for the mature shit again, but then…"_

James seemed to pause for effect. There was a moment of silence, where all that could be heard was the whooping wind swirling around the group, lifting their hairs up on their skin.

"But then, this huge, thing, I'm not really sure what it was, it looked like a dog mixed with a lion, maybe it was Hagrid's new pet, suddenly came out of the bushes, I obviously hadn't chosen the best location, and it went straight for Lily! Obviously, being the quick-thinker, brave-"

"Yet stupid." Sirius interjected, but James carried on as though he hadn't heard it.

" I leapt at the thing, shoving it from its course to Lily, and let me tell you, it was heavy!"

"So you and this creature are fighting?" Sirius asked, a subtle glint in his eye.

"Yup."

"Did you not think to use your wand?" Remus asked, seeing what Sirius was getting at.

"… Can I not just tell _one _story where you don't make me sound an idiot?"

"Sorry James, carry on. You and this thing were fighting like the heroic idiot you are, and what was Lily doing?"

"She- er, well she got out her wand and stunned the thing."

"Marry her."

James, Sirius and Remus all turned to look at Harry, who for the first time had spoken in this conversation.

"Well… from what it looks like you're gonna need someone to help you when you do stupid things."

"Believe me, I've wanted to marry her since second year was it? It's just getting her to realise that she wants me, which I am now one step closer to, because after that whole scuffle with the beast, as it will now be known, she grabbed my hand, _she _grabbed _my _hand, and pulled me along so we were running into Hogsmeade."

"Yeah, we saw you two running off. I think it took our brains a good few seconds to process what we'd just seen." Sirius nodded, agreeing with Remus.

"Tell me about it. I'm not sure I realised what was going on until she sort of pulled me to a stop outside Madam Puddifoot's tea shop. My heart kind of dropped, because let's be honest, what guy actually wants to go there?"

Harry nodded fervently, remembering his fail of a date with Cho in there, where she had burst into tears, however stopped suddenly when he realised he wasn't supposed to know what it was like in there.

"But to my amazement," James carried on, "she laughed, said 'who the hell would want to go in there?' and then carried on pulling me to the Three Broomsticks, sat me down and said she wanted a butterbeer. It was incredible! We then sat there for ages, although it only seemed like a few minutes, just talking, and I've never been able to do that with a girl before, because I'd usually get bored or whatever. I hope that I finally showed her I'm not just some cocky guy."

"N'awww ickle James!" Sirius joked.

"I think I'm in love." James announced as he lay on his back, eyes facing the sky.

"You've been saying that for a while now," came the reply from Sirius.

"But this time, I'm closer to her feeling the same way."

* * *

><p><em>Crash.<em>

All of Harry's books fell from his arms and onto the stone floor, along with the things of whoever he had just collided with.

"Watch where you're going! Now look what you did." A familiar sneer stopped Harry in his tracks to pick up his books. Looking up, he saw a greasy haired, hook nosed, pale, younger version of a certain Professor Snape.

"Oh, sorry, but you know it was partly your fault. You should have been watching where you were going as well you know." Harry examined Snape properly. He looked… small, and sad. He quickly glanced at his left wrist to see any tell tale signs that he'd become a death eater, but while many of the students rolled up their sleeves, Snape's were firmly down to reach a little below the wrists.

Snape looked startled that Harry was talking to him in such a civil manner. From what Harry knew, he hadn't had the best time as Hogwarts, particularly because of Harry's dad and friends, and so, his gaze softened.

"Well," Harry continued, "I suppose it doesn't matter. You're Severus right? I have a couple of classes with you, but you probably don't know me because I'm new and everything."

"No, I-I've seen you around." Snape's voice was now significantly quieter than when he had previously spoken, and it was clear that he had previously been putting on a façade. "We're in potions together right?"

"Yeah I think s-"

"Oi! Harry! What are you hanging around with Snivellus for?" A voice floated towards them from across the corridor, and Harry turned to see James' mess of dark hair striding towards them.

Harry looked back to apologise to Snape, but he had already scuttled off in the opposite direction, leaving his potions book still on the floor by Harry's feet.

"What the hell, James?"

"What do you mean what the hell? What the hell were you doing talking to him? You must know what he's like from what we've told you."

"Did it ever occur to you that I may have wanted to make up my own mind about him? What is your problem with him? Is it because he's a Slytherin? Or maybe because he and Lily were so close?" Harry could feel his voice rising, and he was sure that he was becoming more than slightly red in the face.

James seemed flustered and his face was the same colour as Harry's, although for different reasons, and for what could have been the first time, was rendered speechless.

"You know, I can see why Lily thought you were such an arrogant prat. I can't believe she said yes to you. I feel sorry for her, for thinking you'd changed." With that, Harry grabbed the remaining books on the floor and stormed off in the direction of the room of requirements, leaving James with a confused but hurt look on his face, staring after the retreating figure.

* * *

><p>Opening the door of the room of the requirements, Harry saw to his surprise that he was in a room that had shelves on either side that were stocked with what looked like worthless glass balls. He muttered a few quick words under his breath, preventing anyone to find him, and turned to properly face the area, that seemed vaguely familiar to him. Directly in front, the dark wall seemed to loom above him, and before he knew what he was doing, Harry had grabbed the nearest glass ball and thrown it with all his might at the wall. It smashed beautifully, and there was a quick shower of glass raining to the floor.<p>

It was as if tension was draining out of him when he threw that glass orb, but, as he stepped forward to clean it up, he seemed to walk into some invisible barrier that stretched across the room. From what Harry could tell, it was an additional thought from the room to protect him from any glass, and so, Harry began throwing anything he could grab, as if he was chucking away his anger with it.

'How could his father still be such an idiot?' Harry thought to himself, whilst watching a sixth sprinkle of glass fall. Remus and Sirius had told him that seventh year was when his father wasn't so arrogant, well Harry had yet to see proof of this.

After a few more throws, and Harry felt ready to go out and face people again, and stepped out to the lit halls of Hogwarts.

"Harry?"

A voice from below startled him, and Harry glanced down to see Remus' huddled figure sat on the floor by the rapidly disappearing door.

"Remus? What are you doing here?"

"I heard you and James had had an argument, and came to find you. I assumed that this is where you'd be, but you'd obviously cast some sort of spell or something to stop people from finding you."

"Actually, I just told the room that I didn't want anyone to find me."

"Well, whatever, it worked. So I just sat here and waited for you. What were you doing in there?"

"I was, erm…" Harry trailed off uneasily. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to admit what he was doing; Remus would probably think he was a freak. "I was just relieving my anger a bit," he finally admitted.

Remus frowned at the vague answer. "You know," he began "James feels really bad. He does!" Remus added when he saw Harry's disbelieving look. "He's just very…opinionated when it comes to people in Slytherin, particularly Snape, and I think you hurt him when you mentioned Lily."

"I doubt it. He's always been like that to Snape hasn't he? It's just that this is the first time that someone, a friend, has stood up to him about it." A part of Harry knew that he'd gone too far by saying this, for Remus once told Harry that he had always wanted to confront James and Sirius about how they acted to Snape, but was always afraid that he would lose them as friends.

"_They've done so much for me." _Remus had said. _"They accepted me even though I was a werewolf, I couldn't just throw that back in their faces!"_

"_But you wouldn't have been throwing it back in their faces. It wasn't fair what they were doing to him!" _Harry had replied earnestly.

Although it had only been a year ago, so much had happened that Harry no longer felt as young and naïve as he had been. He understood the reason Remus was giving, and had regretted the words as soon as they had left his mouth, but it was too late, for as he had that conversation brewing in his mind, Harry didn't even notice for a few minutes that Remus had walked away.

* * *

><p>Harry met Snape when he was walking back up to the Gryffindor common room, and nearly repeated the mistake they made earlier, however Harry looked up and side-stepped just in time.<p>

"You want to start looking up when you're walking." Harry said to Snape, not spitefully how some might've done, but as more of a joke.

"Just stay away from me." Snape's tone was back to being harsh, and it was unexpected for Harry to hear. "I should've known you were friends with Potter and that. They think they own the school, striding round thinking they can hex people just because they're Gryffindors. I bet you're just the same."

Harry felt a surge inside of him to defend his dad, but how could he when not an hour earlier he was thinking the same thing? "Here's your potions textbook," he finally settled for, "you left it on the floor earlier."

That night had been painfully awkward. James and Harry still weren't really talking, and neither were Remus and Harry, apart from the occasional polite question and one word answer, and so Harry excused himself to go to bed early, too early for him to be tired. It was only as he lay there that he began to see the similarities between the room that had appeared for him earlier and the Department of Mysteries that held rows of crystal balls each holding someone's prophecy.

**A/N: Wow, I'm sorry, the updates are getting slower and shorter! I do have some stuff planned out for the next chapters, but if anyone has any ideas then I will welcome then and maybe put them in! I hope you're enjoying the story, I can't believe so many people are actually reading this :)**


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

The morning was a Saturday, and felt just as awkward as the night before. Peter was clearly trying to fill the obvious space, chattering to James about his favourite subjects; James and food, whilst the poor boy on the end of it all was desperately trying to get back to sleep. Sirius was at a loss about what to say, although it was clear to Harry that he was siding with James, as he expected him to for he was exactly the same regarding Snape. That left Remus and Harry. Remus and Harry had both woken early as usual, and had been treated to an uncomfortable 'morning' spoken to each other, and then resumed business with Remus reading in the common room, and Harry leaving to head to the library.

He settled down in one of the few hidden corners in the library with one of the books Dumbledore had given him, although he didn't hold out much hope for it, especially because he book was titled '_spells'._ 'How specific,' thought Harry as he flicked quickly through the pages before turning to the contents.

'Lets see,' Harry thought, as he viewed the crinkly, slightly stained page in front of him.

**Charms ...….. 5**

**Transfiguration ...….43**

**Jinxes ….95**

**Hexes … 131**

**Curses …...177**

**Healing spells …219**

**Counter spells …...255**

Just as he was flicking to the curses section, thinking about how vague this stupid book was, he noticed the light dimming around him and frowned to himself. It was early morning! Must just be the lights going off for some reason, maybe a student wanted to try an experiment again. Harry involuntary braced himself, for last time, Sirius had decided to do an extra credit project for defence against the darks arts by showing the advantages and disadvantages of performing attacking spell in the dark. Needless to say, the disadvantages were considerably larger than the advantages for Sirius, as he ended up shooting spells at anyone that moved in hope to get the real target, which was the professor. When the lights came back on, Sirius had found himself staring into the unharmed stormy eyes of Professor Dupe whilst the area around him was filled with knocked over bookcases and several unfortunate first years trapped under a mountain of hard-backed literature.

It was a good few minutes before Harry realised that the absence of brightness was not the lights dimming but a shadow that had been cast over him. He looked up to see determined, but if possible even paler face of Snape staring straight ahead, and had Harry not realised that he had been standing there for a while, he would've thought that Snape had just paused there for a second or two, for why else would he be there?

"Um, Severus?" Harry began nervously, for they had not had a good end to their conversation yesterday. "Are you ok?"

Snape looked startled, as though he had not expected Harry to notice him. Words seemed to fail him, before he squeaked out in a particularly un-Snape like fashion "I- thanks for bringing my potions book back."

Harry gave what he was hoping was a warm smile. "That's fine, don't worry about it." There was a slight pause, in which Snape opened his mouth, looking on the verge of saying something. There was a crash from behind them, disrupting the moment.

"I guess I'll see you then." He finally muttered before sidling away towards the exit where there was a fourth year on the floor, the obvious result of the crash, leaving Harry in peace, although not at peace from his mind because he wondered what had changed Snape's attitude towards him. Meeting Snape at this age was so much different than what he was like when he was teaching, and Harry presumed that it was the events that occurred when he was a student at Hogwarts that turned him into a bitter man. Snape had obviously not fitted in anywhere, found people that had accepted him and even if they were the wrong people for him to be with, had gone with them, joined up to become a death eater.

He sighed and turned back to the book with little hope of finding something.

* * *

><p>When Harry got back to the common room still with no answers on the spell, Remus and Sirius were sat in a corner in deep discussion. Not wanting to disturb them, he made to go to the dorm but Sirius beckoned him over, resulting in Remus giving Harry's godfather an alarmed look.<p>

"Right, last time you seemed to have some ideas. What can you think of to prank James and Lily now they're together?"

"I, um, I'm not sure, I'm not exactly on the best terms with James at the moment." 'Or you' Harry added silently in his head looking at Remus, who seemed to be looking anywhere but him.

Sirius seemed to notice the friction between them and burst out angrily, "oh for God's sake! Remus told me what happened Harry, and yeah what you said was a bit harsh and I think you know why, but I also think you overreacted a bit Remus. So," he clambered to his legs rather shakily, the consequence of being sat on the floor for too long, "I'm going to go and wake up James and Peter, and when I get back down you two had better be on good terms again!" Always the actor, Sirius attempted to make a dramatic exit out of the common room up to the dorm, but failed when he tripped over the legs of a first year.

Harry and Remus sniggered simultaneously, before breaking off quickly, catching each others eyes. They stared at each other, the image of twins, not in looks but in mannerisms. Two chins were set slightly up to give an edge, two sets of eyes were narrowed and it was a test to see who would back out first. Finally, Remus lowered his eyes to the ground.

"This is stupid," he muttered, eyes still downcast.

"You're right," agreed Harry, "I regretted what I had said straight afterwards, yesterday was just a bad day I was getting into arguments with everyone; you, James, Snape."

The mention of Snape's name jolted Remus to look back up, as if a reminder of the argument. He sighed, "Sirius is right, I did overreact a bit, you just kind of hit a sore spot for me I guess."

"And that's enough apologising for me!" Harry had just been about to say sorry again to Remus, when a voice interrupted him, and he looked around just in time to see Sirius rip off the invisibility cloak from the corner of the room.

"Sirius!" Remus hissed, looking frantically around the room, "what if someone saw?"

"Don't worry, there's no one here, I checked. The bloody first year that I tripped over has gone. Their smallness is a hazard to everyone else." He muttered the last sentence to himself, but it was still audible for a first year just coming through the portrait to hear. Needless to say, she changed her mind about coming in pretty quickly, and scampered back the way she came.

"You know, you were a first year once," Remus reminded Sirius.

"I may have been in the first year, but I was _never_ that small. Did you see the size of that one about to come in? She was minute! Nope, you, Remus, may have been a small child, which believe me you were, but I was always tall, taller than most third years!"

"Bullshit," coughed Remus, winking at Harry.

"Oh Harry," Sirius continued, ignoring Remus, "you might want to speak to James, he's still up in the dorm."

"That depends," Harry retorted. "Is he going to apologise what he said to Snape? Say that he regrets it maybe?"

"Er, he might?"

"_That's _bullshit." Harry finalised, and walked up to the dorm leaving a nervous Remus and Sirius behind him and an unsuspecting James ahead.

* * *

><p>When Harry reached upstairs he paused at the doorway, hearing an odd noise. It sounded like a muffled shout and a lot of rustling. He pushed open the door and was greeted by a book being thrown in his direction.<p>

"Sirius you dick! What have you done?"

"James?" Harry's anger had been replaced by confusion. "It's Harry..."

The moving stopped, so Harry could just make out a lump in James' bed, which presumably, was James.

"Crap, Harry, sorry, I thought you were Sirius. Fuck, I just threw a book at you."

"It's ok," Harry began carefully, "but what are you doing?"

"Trying to get out of bed but that IDIOT Sirius had stuck me to it. I also seem to have feather stuck to me, which I'm guessing was the result of his actions as well."

"Here, let me try and help." Harry first tried pulling James, before realising that it was useless, especially since he kept getting feathers in his mouth. He grabbed his wand from his pocket (where it was always kept now, no matter how safe he probably was) and muttered the words '_finite incantatem'. _James was unstuck at once, and he not so gracefully fell to the floor in a heap. However, when he untangled his limbs and stood up, it was clear that the feathers stuck to him still were not there by magically means, but by super glue.

Harry let out a quick laugh. He couldn't help it, James just looked so funny with the 'ready to kill Sirius' look on his face and covered from head to toe in feathers.

"He must've done this when Peter had gone, so I'd gone back to sleep." James growled. "And now, I look like an oversized bird. Brilliant. Just the look I was going for actually. Now how do I get them off?"

"You could try pulling them off? It really depends on how strong the glue is."

"Owww!" James had a feather in one hand and was desperately trying to pull it off, however Harry could see that it was simply pulling the skin with it. His face was screwed up in pain, so Harry had to stop him.

"James. James! Stop! It will come off eventually, although I have no idea how Sirius even knew about super glue!"

"Oh he loves anything to do with muggles." James answered. "I never thought that him learning about muggles would result in me looking like this though! What am I supposed to do until they come off? Just sit here?"

"When I said eventually….Well super glue is very strong and…"

"Harry," James resorted back to growling, "How long until they fall off?"

"I don't know," Harry replied honestly, "but probably longer than the weekend!"

"That's just fantastic. Where is Sirius?"

Without meaning to, Harry felt his eyes slide to the door leading to the common room, and James marched out. The squeals of students as James walked in were comical, but not as comical as Remus and Sirius' faces.

"Oh god... I had hoped it would work… never thought it would be this good!" Sirius gasped out, bent double with laughter.

"You look…like a giant chicken!" Remus joined in, body matching Sirius'.

"You. Bastard." James was standing over, a look so menacing on his face that made Sirius laugh even more.

"What you gonna do, _chicken?_ Get it Remus? _Chicken?"_

"I get it Sirius, don't ruin it with crappy jokes."

"Just wait, Black. You're gonna regret this, and Harry's going to help!"

"I-what?" Harry looked at James confused.

"You're on." Sirius carried on. "Me and Remus against you and Harry. We'll see who survives."

Harry felt himself being dragged like a rag doll up to the dorm by James, who was ready for planning. The argument between Harry and James was clearly forgotten by the latter, and Harry was reluctant to bring it up again.

**A/N: I know this was short and a slow update, but can you please tell me if you prefer short but quicker updates or longer but slower updates? I hope you're enjoying this story, please read and review :) thanks to those who do!**


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

"I hate Sirius. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him."

"James, it's not that bad, honestly."

"Yeah James, believe him… or look in the mirror and see that he's lying."

"Will you just shut up!" James leapt on Sirius, whacking him with a pillow whilst Harry sighed to himself in a particularly Remus-like fashion. It had been like this all weekend, and James had been trying desperately to be seen by a little people as possible. Of course the word had gotten around the school, but James was refusing to believe this, and was also refusing to go the lessons this morning. A part of him was almost jealous of James, at least he had those feathers to keep him warm. The temperature was steadily dropping each day, and the snow on the grounds stubbornly stayed put, much to Harry's dismay.

"They're at it again, then?" Remus appeared by Harry's elbow, indicating with his head the direction of the two boys on the floor.

"Yep, and they will be until James' feathers come off. Although it will probably last even longer if this whole 'prank war' goes ahead."

"About that, has James been talking to you about ideas?"

"Yeah, but he could never carry out the majority of them, he'd need a seriously dark wizard to do that. What about Sirius?"

"Exactly the same. I suppose we'll just have to let them get on with it then."

A bell rang in the distance, reminding everyone it was nearly time for first lessons to begin. Harry glanced at his timetable. Although he had been here a couple of months, he still hadn't gotten a grip on his timetable, and so, had a wave of depression hit him as he saw what he had first thing. _Double potions. _Bloody hell, just kill him now. 'Although,' Harry thought, 'going through everything I've been through and then wanting to die because of _double potions _may be a bit weak.' But it was _double potions. _The bane of his week. Still, he had to get on with it.

Remus was downstairs trying to get Sirius and James to come to potions, and Harry could just hear James' bloodcurdling screams of "NOOOOO! YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME! JUST LEAVE ME HERE TO DIE!"

Five minutes later, Harry kind of wished he had just left James to die. After his moaning and groaning, they were ten minutes late to potions, lost five points from Gryffindor and Harry had received a couple of bruises from the flailing James. Although it was funny to see how everyone's faces changed as they saw him coming. Of course they had heard about it, but Harry had to admit, it was funnier to see it in the flesh.

"Look at James!" Whispers filled the room, despite Professor Slughorn's best efforts to quieten them. "I heard Sirius did it."

Harry turned to see Sirius walking proudly behind the shrivelled James, chest puffed out as if to say 'yep, this is my creation.'

"QUIET!" Slughorn finally roared, and silence was gained instantly. "Now then," he continued in a marginally quieter voice than he had previously been using. "Today you're going to be working in pairs to brew Veritaserum. But," he added as pupils shuffled next to one another, organising who would be partnered with who, "as a result of this morning's chaos, I will be picking those pairs."

An almighty groan was uttered from most people, for when Slughorn put them into pairs; he never put two people of the same house together. So far, in the short time he'd been here, Harry had been lucky, and had been partnered with Frank Longbottom and Mary Abbott, both in Hufflepuff.

"Evans and Abbott, Lupin and Avery, Black and Crabbe, Potter and Rosier, Jamieson and Snape, Longbottom and Lockhart…" The list went on, but Harry wasn't really listening. "The instructions I have set you should create a weaker potion than it should actually be, however if you are completely, and I mean _completely, _confident you may try to achieve the stronger one. However, to make up for that, the pair who brew the Veritaserum the best will be given a sample of it. As seventh years, I expect you to use it wisely. Yes, that means you Black." That made Harry perk up, however, as it did for the rest of the class, and they all set about moving to be with their partners so they could have the most time to try and brew the best potion.

Harry supposed it wasn't the worst thing to be paired with Snape, however he was still a little unsure of where he stood with him. What would his attitude to Harry be like today? He was a little apprehensive, but obediently moved his stuff away from where Sirius and Crabbe were already arguing and onto Snape's desk.

After a moment of silence, Harry said "right, well I suppose I'd better get the ingredients and that then?" He waited for an answer, but upon receiving none, went to grab the ingredients from where they were laid out on Slughorn's desk.

"You're lucky I put you with Snape, Mr Jamieson." It took Harry a beat to realise Slughorn was addressing him and nodded vaguely. "He's a very good pupil of mine, and you could learn a few things from him. Bit of an odd side to him though." Slughorn half whispered the last part.

"Yes sir." Harry was at a bit of a loss about what to say back to that.

"Good good. Now you'd better get on with your potion, it looks like Mr Snape is waiting for you to return."

Harry and Snape worked silently for the majority, only breaking it when Snape would tell Harry he was doing something wrong. The last time, Harry had had enough.

"Ok Snape, what's up with you? First you seem to be you know an okay guy, next minute when I try to do something nice you yell in my face, then in the library you were distant and barely said anything to me, and now you're just completely ignoring me, so what's wrong?"

Harry realised that the whole classroom had gone quiet, but not for the first time, he didn't care. He was now towering over the still sitting Snape whilst the others were frozen in a motion, even the feathers stuck to James had stopped blowing around.. It was like the whole world had just stopped.

"Ok everyone, back to work. Don't make me tell you again or I'll put you in pairs for the rest of the year!" Fortunately for Snape, Slughorn's threat meant that everyone had busied themselves working again, although Harry suspected that many were keeping an ear open for Snape's reaction to his words. Neither Harry nor Snape moved though, not until Harry slowly sank back into his chair and began furiously stirring the bubbling brew.

"I'm sorry," came the whisper from Harry's left, the voice of a pale and shrunken young man.

"What for?" Harry didn't want to let him get away with it that easily.

"For… I don't know, everything I guess." He took a deep breath in, as if to steady myself. "Ok, the first time we met, I thought you were alright, but when I found out that you hung around with Potter and Black, well I assumed you'd be exactly like them, and they've made my time at Hogwarts pretty much Hell. I know I shouldn't have assumed that because, well, I guess Lupin isn't bad, he seems ok and he gets on well with Lily." There was an awkward pause as it was clearly the first time he had said her name since they stopped being friends. "however," he carried on, although his voice sounded a bit odd still, "I then heard Potter and Black talking about it when I was walking behind them, and they mentioned how you stuck up for me after James was about to hex me and I felt bad, so that's why I went to the library where some kid said they'd seen you and I was going to apologise but I don't know I just-"

"Snape. Severus! It's ok, honestly. But James and Sirius are my friends and as much as I hate when they randomly hex people, they're still good guys."

"If you say so," muttered Snape.

The rest of the lesson had considerably more conversation between Harry and Snape than before, yet Harry didn't ask him why he kept throwing things in that weren't in the ingredients, or stirring the potion differently than what was instructed.

"Stop brewing!" Professor Slughorn boomed, and the ingredients disappeared instantly. He started wondering around each cauldron, peering at them either appreciatively or with distaste.

"I'm not sure it should be bubbling like that Longbottom, better luck next time. A surprisingly good effort from you Potter and Rosier, but I'm not sure that's precisely the right colour, ah Lily, excellent as always, Avery you clearly let Lupin do all the work, hence why your potion is the right colour, or is even still in the cauldron." He went on and on, his expert eye able to analyse what went wrong with the potions as he swept by, until he reached Harry and Snape's, by which he paused.

"Hm. Hm." He circled the black pot, while others looked at him in confusion. Was it going to be bad or good? Especially as Snape was one of the star pupils of potions, along with Harry's mother, therefore there were high expectations of him.

"This is interesting, I must say," Slughorn began, "using the instructions I have given, it should have turned a little lighter than this, however you have achieved the correct colour for the proper brew. This is excellent; you must have used your initiative on making this. Did you?"

Harry was bewildered but Snape nodded in answer to Slughorn's question.

"Well, this means that you are the winners, so here you are, as promised, a bit of Veritaserum." He produced a small vial of a dark blue liquid from a drawer in his desk and presented it to the two boys.

"But remember what I said to you earlier, use it wisely you two."

* * *

><p>"So," James said, "you and Snape seemed to be getting on well earlier on." It was the evening now, and Sirius had dragged Remus off to plan another prank so James had decided to do the same with Harry. They were just talking about whether to include dungbombs (were they too childish?) when James suddenly blurted it out.<p>

"We were just talking, we were partnered up you know." Harry had thought all this had been buried, at least for a while. What was James doing bringing it all back up?

"Hm. Ok. What are you going to do with the Veritaserum then? Oh, I've got an idea! We can use it for a prank! Maybe not use it on Sirius and definitely not Remus as they could blurt out their secrets, but what about a Slytherin?"

"I doubt Snape would agree to that."

"Who cares about Snape?"

"Well, it was him who won it; he put a lot more work into it than me." Harry had realised that it was clearly Snape's doing that caused them to win the Veritaserum, for he had adapted the instructions that had been given to make them better. Thoughts of the half-blood prince came to Harry and he shuddered thinking of how much he hated Snape at the end of his sixth year, after he'd killed Dumbledore.

"Oh who cares. You were still part of that team! And now, you're part of this team. You and me, yeah?" Harry felt a rush of happiness as he heard James words, and it was all he could do to nod. "Ok, then. Now, I was thinking we use the doorways as an advantage to us, but of course, they may be doing the same thing so, what? What are you looking at me like that for?"

A feather floated down to the bed that they were sitting on.

"I'M FREE! MY SKIN CAN BREATH! BUT SIRIUS IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, THAT DOES NOT MEAN I FORGIVE YOU. YOU'D BETTER WATCH OUT FOR THE NEXT WEEK OR SO!"

**A/N: A quicker update than last :) thoughts for pranks would be appreciated and you would obviously be mentionned. Please tell me what you think of the story!**


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

The so called 'prank war' had to be on hold for the full moon, which was in a couple of days. No one particularly cared; Remus and Harry because they weren't that bothered by it, James and Sirius because it gave them more time to think and plan. Peter wasn't really a part of it, however he didn't mind for James kept giving him errands to run and carry out, which he was more than happy to do.

Harry was going to propose the idea of the Wolfsbane to Remus, except he wanted James and Sirius there with him, because he felt that they would be more likely to want t try it. Remus, he wasn't so sure about.

"Remus," Harry called over one evening. "Can I speak to you for a second?" They were all in the dorm, lying on their beds or studying, in Remus' case, however they were all within ear shot of each other.

"Sure, what's up?" Remus was only half concentrated on the conversation, for the other half of him was taking sneaky looks at a defence against the dark arts textbook, and scribbling down a few notes.

"I've got something that might help for in a couple of night's time."

It was like saying magic words. In unity, everyone's heads snapped up, wide, unblinking eyes focussed on him.

Harry stepped back, slightly unnerved.

"Like…what?" Remus said slowly.

"Like a potion that will help you to remember what happens when you're a werewolf."

"Yeah right. Where'd you find that then? Advertised in some shitty newspaper? Believe me, I've looked everywhere for things that claim to help, and tried most of them. Some of them were terrible." He shuddered at the memory. "One of them made it so that- so that it prolonged the change to last for hours. By the time I had become a werewolf, I basically started to change back again. It was excruciating pain, and thank god my parents heard my screams because they called a healer as quickly as possible to sort it out. That was the last one I took, and I swore I'd never take another." His voice broke at the end, and he turned his head away for a second, as if embarrassed.

"I swear this won't do that. You remember my werewolf friend I told you about? I used to make it for him. He could remember everything that would happen in the night."

"You don't get it. Even if it does work I don't _want _to remember the moon, the change. My bones snap, change, grow, muscles adapt in the most agonizing way."

"But this will make it _better_. You will feel control. You won't hurt yourself."

Harry could see that Remus was wavering.

"But, what if it doesn't work? Or something goes wrong?" Peter piped up.

Harry's eye twitched. There was a beat of silence before it all came bursting out of him.

"Will you just SHUT UP? You're just a stupid rat who is so afraid of everything that you don't stand up for yourself. That's the reason you're friends with these three people, they're popular, they stand up for you-"

Remus and Sirius rushed to pull Harry back whilst James stood in front of the quivering Peter.

"What the fuck Harry?" James growled. "He was just asking a question!"

Harry was breathing deeply, bent over with Remus and Sirius still each clutching an arm. His anger was subsiding, but he just needed to be on his own for a bit, think it through, because deep in his mind he knew that this was a different person than the one who betrayed his parents. So, he shook them off and marched out of the dorm, heading for the astronomy tower. Harry reckoned that the first place Remus would come and look for him was in the Room of Requirements, so he had to choose a different location.

The wind whistled through his hair, lifting it up to reveal the lightening scar that penetrated his forehead, and off into the dark, star filled night, and it gave him that clear head to think, properly think.

He shouldn't have done it, he knew that, for one it may wreck his cover which is already wearing thin by slip ups and his appearance, but also it wasn't really Peter's fault. Not now at least.

He became aware of a figure behind him, and spun round.

"People have _got _to stop sneaking up on me like th-" Harry stopped when he saw Remus' face. It was a mixture of confusion, hurt and something else Harry couldn't identify, all etched onto his delicately scarred face.

"You've never got on with Peter have you?" Remus' voice was soft yet monotonous, giving away no emotions even though they were plainly shown on his face, and he didn't wait for an answer before carrying on. "The first time you saw him, heard his name, your eyes darkened, I saw them. From then on, you were always very distant with him, I mean, I know he's not the easiest person to have a conversation with but you seem to not want to talk to him even when there's others there. What's he done?"

Harry was at a loss as to what to say to that. He didn't realise he had been so obvious, or that Remus was so clever to pick up things like that.

"He hasn't done anything." He finally answered, although he couldn't explain why he didn't like Peter.

"Right. Ok. So you just decided to hate him from the first time you saw him?"

"Look, can we just leave it? I'll apologise to Peter when I next see him, but I'm just going to stay up here for a bit."

Harry sat on the floor, back to the wall of the stairs so he could still see and breathe in the night.

"In which case, I'll join you. But I won't bring up Peter even though I think it's good that you'll apologise. But I won't bring him up."

"Thanks." Harry smiled at him. "So, have you thought anymore about that potion I mentioned earlier?"

"No, I haven't. It's not that I don't trust you, I'm just wondering if I do want to remember what happens."

"Like I said before, you would be in control, you wouldn't harm yourself as much."

There was a pause, before, "Ok."

"What?" Harry seemed startled. After earlier he hadn't expected Remus to agree to it.

"Ok, I'll take it. So do I just have to drink it before I change."

"Actually, you have to start taking it now. I guess I should've told you about it a bit earlier. It's called the Wolfsbane potion, but I doubt you've heard of it." 'I _really _doubt it' Harry added in his head 'for it doesn't exist in this time.'

"Fine, lead me to it. But you're not some psychopath who wants to kill me are you?"

"If I was, I probably wouldn't tell you, but just for the record, I'm not." Remus let out a sharp laugh and indicated that Harry should lead the way to the potion.

"Hey, who's up here? It's after hours you know, you should be in your dorms by now." A deep voice coming up the stairs stopped them in their tracks.

"Hi James. You're really taking your head boy responsibilities seriously, aren't you?"

"Oh, it's you guys." He seemed almost embarrassed to have been caught reminding other people of the rules when he had paid them no heed, and still didn't. "Yeah, Lily may have dragged me out to do the rounds even though I swear that's the prefect's job, isn't it Remus? You were a prefect!"

"God, yes, I hated doing the rounds. I only had to do it a couple of times a week however, because the head boy and girl would do it!"

"Shut up, I'll do it in a bit." He leant against the wall next to Harry and Remus. "So what were you guys talking about?"

"The potion that will help Remus during the full moon."

"Are you going to take it?" James directed this question at Remus, who shrugged.

"Harry was just going to show it to me when you turned up, I'll probably have a look at it, but I'll have to decide quickly because apparently I have to start taking it tonight if I want it to work."

"Tonight? Wow, um, honestly mate I'd take it. Sirius, Peter and I, we all remember the night, and we can remember how rough it gets, especially when you start attacking yourself. If there was a chance, any chance, that that could change then go for it. Nut then we all know the trouble you had when you were younger…"

"James? James!" Another voice came floating up the stairs to meet their ears, this time a feminine yet angry one.

"Crap, that'll be Lily, I've gotta go. I'll see you guys when you get back to the dorm." With that, he scrambled down the winding stairs in the hope Lily wouldn't suspect he'd been talking to his friends.

"Well," Harry said, "shall we go then?"

* * *

><p>Harry had managed to hide his stash of letters before he suggested the idea to Remus, so there was no chance of them being found. Instead, all Remus saw was a cauldron bubbling, although that was starting to subside, in the middle of a small, dark room.<p>

"How long have you been working on this?" Remus asked, amazed at the effort Harry had put into it.

"Since the last full moon, it takes a while to make, and I may have nicked a few things out of Slughorn's storage cupboard, but I doubt he'll notice…"

"Harry! You shouldn't steal things like that for me. You can't do this anymore, even if this month goes well when I take it. Sorry, _if _I take it."

"Ok, I'll make you a deal. You take it for this month and then afterwards, you tell me if you want me to make it or not."

"Well… ok, I'll agree to that. Erm, I think the potion's done now." The bubbling had ceased completely, and had now turned a lilac colour, which, if Harry could remember correctly was the correct colour for the last but one step.

"Yep, you're right. Damn, I'll be back in a sec, I've just forgotten to get one last thing. But I'll have to run back and get James' invisibility cloak first so I could be a while."

"Yeah that's fine, I've got my book anyway." Remus pulled out the book from his pocket to show Harry before the latter boy walked out.

Remus wandered around the room, although as it was rather small, that only took a matter of seconds. He frowned into the potion as if inspecting it and then looked around to double check no one was there before pulling out a metal contraption from his pocket.

The once shiny colour had now dulled with age, and the amount it had been used. Although it had no official name, Remus had called it the potion indicator because, although it wasn't very original, that was exactly what it did. If he didn't trust a certain potion, he could simply put this in for thirty odd seconds, and when he pulled it out it would tell him the name of the potion and whether there were any ingredients that would be harmful to him.

It was specifically designed for werewolves, and Professor Slughorn had given it to him in his third potions lesson ever, after a previous potion brewing had meant that he had to go to the Hospital Wing because he no one had realised that silver was one of the ingredients to add. On it was listed every type of potion created, it would automatically update itself when the ministry approved another one. It had saved him a lot of trouble when he had been looking for cures for lycanthropy, and many a time had he thought this tiny device had had the potential to save his life.

"That's odd," Remus murmured to himself, as he glanced down at the potion indicator.

_This potion does not contain a combination of harmful or dangerous ingredients, for a human or a werewolf. This potion is unknown._

**A/N: Is this better for more Remus and Harry friendship? The prank war will probably be the chapter after next, as the next one will be the full moon. Do you think Harry should become an animagus? Check out my profile for a poll choosing which animal! Please read and review :) Thanks to those that do!**


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

"_That's odd," Remus murmured to himself, as he glanced down at the potion indicator._

_This potion does not contain a combination harmful or dangerous ingredients, for a human or a werewolf. This potion is unknown._

"Ok, back!" Harry called in to Remus, holding in his hand a tiny vial of clear liquid. Remus scrambled to put the potion indicator back in his pocket, and placed a calm façade on his face.

"All ok?" He asked Harry, as he put a couple of drops into the potion. To Remus' surprise, it didn't look remotely different. "Didn't run into Slughorn or anything?"

"I had a close call at one point, but luckily I had the invisibility cloak." Harry held it out for Remus to see, who nodded appreciatively. The potion finished, he poured a portion of the potion into a small glass, one which he'd obviously taken from the store cupboard as well. Things like that had become second nature to Harry, but Remus wasn't entirely comfortable with it.

"I just don't want you to get into trouble because you've taken things for this… what's it called again?"

"Wolfsbane potion."

"Right. That." Remus tugged nervously at the ends of his fraying, black robe, as if gearing up to ask Harry something. His mouth started twitching when Harry offered him the glass, thinking of ways he could refuse. Although there weren't any harmful ingredients, the fact that the potion indicator didn't recognise it worried him more than slightly. This had never happened before, usually, if the potion wasn't recognised it was because there were some harmful ingredients and so, Remus just wouldn't take it.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked, for it was plain to see that Remus wasn't at ease about drinking the liquid he currently held in his hands.

Remus took a deep breath. "Nothing, nothing." 'Here goes nothing,' he thought, and grabbed the glass from Harry and knocked it back without taking a second to taste it, in case he backed out. He just had to trust Harry.

The flavour was revolting as was the thick texture, and Remus had a great difficulty in swallowing it down. A small tingling spread through his body as he felt the liquid slip down his throat, however that could have simply been because of the fact he'd just quite possibly killed himself with one drink

"How do you feel?" Harry asked anxiously. What if the potion affected Remus different because he was younger? Should he have adapted it in some way, made it weaker?

"Ok… but I doubt the effects will be that instant? Or are they? You tell me, you're the expert." Remus was mentally checking every part of his body to ensure he could move it, and it hadn't turned a violent shade of red or endured a similar effect.

"You shouldn't feel anything much, the only time you'll notice anything different is when you're actually transforming. So you can stop examining yourself." Remus looked up and grinned guiltily at Harry.

"Sorry," he said.

"Well, I suppose we'll have to go back." Harry continued. "Remember tomorrow night to take it as well. I'd better go and apologise to Peter then…"

"You never did tell me your problem with him," Remus inquired.

Harry hesitated. What could he say?

"Nothing really," he finally decided on. "He was just bugging me a bit and I lost it."

Remus didn't completely buy it, but had no other explanation to explain Harry's actions towards Peter, and so had to go along with it although he made a mental note to himself to watch out for anything odd.

* * *

><p>Lessons were hard for all the marauders around this time of the month, obviously Remus struggled with the mounting pressure that was building inside of him, meaning he had an inability to concentrate, but his friends were constantly worried about him, making sure he was ok and taking down extra notes for him. It annoyed Remus the way they did that, but deep down inside him, he knew it was necessary.<p>

"Remus." James leaned across and poked Remus on the back of his head, the only part of him that was visible. "The lessons ended, you've just got to move to Transfigurations and then you can sleep again."

"Mmph. Just. Go away." A slightly muffles but certainly sleepy reply came from below the sandy hair.

"Nope, sorry. Come on." Sirius and James hauled him to his feet, where he stumbled towards the door and beyond, clearly eager to get to the next lesson where he could sleep again. Harry hurried forwards with him, leaving the others behind to pick up Remus' things.

"How are you feeling? Are you normally this tired?" Harry asked, for what must have been the hundredth time in the past two days. Although the previous time Remus had taken the potion it had gone exactly like the first time, and every time he'd taken it in Harry's time, that didn't stop Harry's paranoia that something had gone wrong.

"I'm fine," came Remus' tired reply, but he swayed slightly on the spot showing otherwise.

"Woah." Harry said as he struggled to prop him against the wall. "Maybe you should go to the Hospital Wing?"

"Don't…need to. Just… tired…"

"Sure you are. Ok, maybe not the Hospital Wing but I'm definitely taking you to the dorm."

The walk to the dorm was slow and painful going, and Harry almost threw Remus down once he reached the beds. He collapsed figure was so tired he had not even noticed the journey, and quickly became blissfully asleep sprawled across his bed. Harry sat adjacent to him on his own bed, looking at the unconscious figure until he felt his own eye lids prick and begin to droop.

That's how James, Sirius and Peter found them when they came up, two still bodies completely asleep.

"So let me get this straight. We have to go to lessons, take extra notes whilst Harry here just falls asleep?" Sirius seemed outraged, but it was clear his voice had an element of joke held in it.

Harry began to stir as he heard the voices.

"What time is it?" He groaned, rolling slowly over to grab his glasses which had been hastily put on the side.

"About six. You lazy buggers have been asleep throughout all lessons, so we had to tell the teachers you were helping Remus, which-"

"Wait. It's six?" Harry jumped out of bed and began shaking Remus to wake him up.

"Yeah, what's the big thing about six?" James questioned.

"Remus is supposed to take the rest of the potion at six. There has to be a certain amount of time before he takes it and he transformed."

Remus had heard these words and sat bolt upright. He had had enough bad experiences in the past to know that it could be disastrous if even the tiniest thing went wrong.

"Stay here, I'll run down and get it." Harry said, looking at the white sheet which was Remus' face. "You lot should begin getting ready anyway, I'll be back in a sec."

Harry sprinted to the room of requirements and back again in what must've been record timing, much to the annoyance of the several teachers he narrowly missed. When he got back he found himself face to face with a stag, a dog and a rat, all on or near the bed in which Remus sat, who was looking happier as he stroked the black dog's fur.

This was new to Harry. Although they had told him they were animagi when they found out he knew about Remus, this was the first time he'd seen it, not including the times he'd seen Sirius as a dog, his patronus which took the form of the stag and of course, Pettigrew as a rat. To be honest, he had blocked that last one out of his memory. In awe, he gently placed the potion on a nearby table and walked over to the great animals in front of him, hand reaching out to feel the antlers of his dad.

As quick as a flash, the stag turned back into James and there was an awkward moment where Harry's hand was still in James hair.

"Pretty cool, huh?" James smiled as Sirius and Peter changed back as well.

Harry nodded mutely. "How long did it take you guys to do that?"

"Well," Sirius answered, still lounging across Remus' bed, just in a more human way now. "Ever since we found out in second year we wanted to try and help, but it wasn't until third year, and a hell of a lot of library books later, that we discovered about it. We tried whenever we could, and towards the end of fourth year we started to get it, although that was when it was most dangerous, because sometimes only parts of us would change and the others would have to help that person. Beginning of fifth year I think as that we got it, yeah?" He looked to the others for reassurance that that was right.

"You know how grateful I am for it, right?"

"Yes yes Remus, we know. Now drink your potion." James passed the vial of the remaining potion over to Remus who sneered in disgust.

"Is there anything you can do to make it taste nicer?" He asked Harry.

"No, sorry. Just drink it really quickly."

Remus gulped it down just like the previous times, before wiping his mouth with his sleeve and swinging his slightly shaking legs out of bed. "I think it's time to go to the hospital wing, so Harry I'll see you in the morning, and I'll see the rest of you a bit later tonight then." Shrugging on his jumper, he staggered out of the room.

"Will he be ok?" Harry asked, frowning.

"Most likely no. But we usually give it a minute and then go help him but because he hates being helped we say that we need to get ready and that as well, o we might as well walk down with him. He knows it's not true but he also knows that he does need help sometimes."

"Actually James, I was thinking we should go down now? I need to get my trick quill back from one of the teachers anyway."

"Yeah, sure. See you in the morning Harry!"

"See you." Harry replied quietly, although the door had already closed behind them.

* * *

><p>For a while, Harry sat there, the same as he had done the previous moon. He hoped that the Wolfsbane worked, and had only affected him in the way it should have done. Suddenly, Harry began having doubts about it all, but an hour later, and having not seen anyone running to or from the Whomping Willow, he assumed that nothing was wrong.<p>

His thoughts went back to what Sirius had been saying about becoming an animagus. If they could do it when they were younger than him, then why couldn't he do it now? That's it, he would become an animagus and help Remus out on the full moons.

He checked out several books from the library that would contain how to perform the spell. It was risky, especially being on his own but he just let his mind slide over that, not thinking about it.

'_A potion is used to determine the animal in which the person in question would transform into. After doing that, the person simply has to imagine themself turning into that animal. Only the most powerful and skilled witches and wizards are able to become Animagi, for the process is long and has the potential to backfire and go wrong. Make sure there is always someone else who can help when attempting to transform.'_

'Brilliant', Harry thought sarcastically as he skimmed through the ingredients for the potion. Nothing too difficult, and could be ready in a matter of minutes. Therefore, after yet another raid to Slughorn's potions cupboard and ten minutes of fierce brewing, the potion was ready to take. According to another of the books, once the potion has been taken, a ghost like animal will show.

He silently lifted his glass to everyone back home, and also James, Sirius and Remus from this time, and tipped it so the liquid trickled down his throat. The air was silent, and for a few seconds, the whole world seemed to have stopped still. Suddenly, there began a whistling of wind forming around him, and from his arms, legs, whole body a see-through shape was pulled from him to stand in the centre of the room.

'Hm.' Thought Harry, 'I suppose I should've expected that.'

**A/N: I know it's been ages, I'm sorry it's just been a rough few weeks. Thank you to everyone still reading this and this is your last chance to vote on the poll on my profile! Hopefully the next update will be quicker, but I have got a lot on at the moment!**


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

'_Hm.' Thought Harry, 'I suppose I should've expected that.'_

Before him stood this magnificent, snowy white beast, proudly looking directly into the eyes of Harry. Although ghost-like, the piercing stare of amber eyes matched the equally sharp green eyes in a moment of peace. It began to run at him, and against his will, Harry cringed away, but stopped suddenly when the animal avoided him, instead started bounding playfully around him, sniffing his clothes.

'_A wolf' _Harry whispered.

As soon as he'd uttered those words, the wolf turned to look into his eyes once more, before running straight into him, disappearing back under Harry's skin. He gave an involuntary shudder, before referring back to the book for the next step of how to become an animagus, smiling as he thought of that mischievous wolf.

'_The person simply has to imagine themselves turning into that animal.'_

So he closed his eyes and attempted to picture himself as that wolf. He was still conscious of his surroundings, worried that someone would walk in and wonder what the hell he was doing.

Harry wasn't sure how long he'd been stood there for, but when he peeked one eye open, his spirits sank in disappointment as he realised nothing had changed. Not one toe, or eyebrow.

'Come on', he told himself 'you shouldn't have expected to have got it on the first go. Just keep trying.'

This time he stood in the middle of the messy room, closed his eyes and fell through to his imagination, losing himself in his thoughts. He no longer paid any heed to the environment he was in, concentrating purely on that wolf he'd just seen. He could see himself now; running alongside a dog, a stag, a rat and a werewolf looking up into the sky and seeing the white and cratered moon, full and beautiful for the first time.

A tingling in his feet snapped Harry's eyes open wide.

He looked down and to his disappointment found his normal, human feet pointing in front of him. Exhausted from the surprising amount of effort it was taking, he sat down on one of the crumpled beds nearest him, only to jump right back up again with a yelp.

Thinking he'd simply sat on something, Harry looked around and gave a similar shout when he saw and felt something fluffy and white curled around him.

He grinned to himself. He'd done it! Well maybe not completely, but if he'd gotten himself a tail then he was on his way, and hopefully it wouldn't take too much longer.

Several hours later, a shattered Harry lay on the bed, eyes drooping more and more by the second. Although he'd only been able to achieve one of his feet turning into a paw in addition to the tail, he wasn't disheartened. In fact, it had lifted his spirits knowing that it was likely he'd get there within a few weeks if he really tried.

* * *

><p>Harry went first thing to the hospital to see if the Wolfsbane had worked, or had gone disastrously wrong. He had left the three marauders still snoring as he inched his way inside, bracing himself for the worst when he was greeted by a huge smile from a tired but otherwise unhurt boy sat in a bed.<p>

"Harry!" Remus waved him over, the smile never leaving his face.

"How was last night?" Although from the expression, Harry could happily guess the answer.

"I can't thank you enough, that potion was amazing! Oh god, I can't express how good it felt to be in control! I just-"

"Remus. Remus!" Harry interrupted, "I'm glad you had a good night, I just wanna check everything went ok, so what exactly happened?"

"Well I changed as normal, although…" Remus trailed off.

"Although what?" Harry urged.

"Although I think it might have been a bit less painful." Harry gave a sigh of relief.

"That's good. Ok, what next?"

Remus smiled. "For the first time I can remember exactly what happened, and this time, probably also for the first time, I didn't hurt myself, well except for this scratch Sirius gave me by accident when we were playing around." Remus showed a small scratch leading down his chest. "Madam Pomfrey thought it was amazing. I didn't tell her about the potion you gave me of course, as I know you stole the ingredients, so she just put it down to the wolf being incredibly happy at the moment."

A weight lifted off Harry as Remus spoke those words. He could now relax knowing that he had saved Remus at least one month's worth of suffering.

* * *

><p>With Remus in the hospital, it was just Harry left to wake the others, and as always, he had a hard time doing it.<p>

"Come on guys! You have to get up!"

"Just…. Five more minutes." James said, only wearily opening his eyes for a second when Sirius rolled over and gave a loud, sharp snore.

"You said that half an hour ago." Harry was trying to think of something to give them the incentive to get up. "How about this," he suddenly thought, "we agreed a while ago that we'd start something once the full moon was out the way. You remember?"

"…No."

"Nothing to do with, oh I don't know, making a mockery of each other?"

"Look Harry, either you tell us now or I'll, I don't know, smother you." James growled.

"At least it would get you up!"

Another, fiercer growl from James made Harry realised that he probably wasn't joking.

"Two words. Prank war. Remember now?"

It was like Harry had said the magic words. Although they may be getting on for 18, adults, they still loved a good prank, a prank war in particular. Harry felt déjà vu as he was dragged through to breakfast with James whilst Sirius marched to the Hospital Wing in pursuit of Remus, clutching a quill and parchment.

"So," James began, "what do Sirius and Remus love more than anything in the world?"

"That's easy. For Sirius it would be his hair and then for Remus it would be his books and work."

"Perfect."

…_.Meanwhile….._

"So," Sirius said, "what do James and Harry love more than anything in the world."

"For James it would be Lily… or his appearance, come on he's so cocky it's unreal. Harry's a bit harder, I mean we haven't known him for long."

"I know, do you reckon he likes any of the girls here?" Sirius gave a wink raised his eyebrow in what he hoped was a sexy manner at Remus who stared at him in jokingly disgust.

"Never do that again. I thought you were going to kill me or something. But no, to answer your question I don't think he likes anyone, or I haven't noticed anything."

"So what do you talk about in those long chats then?" Sirius seemed shocked at the prospect of _not _talking about who they had gotten with recently.

"Not all of us are slags, Padfoot. Don't give me that look, you know it's kind of true." Sirius was giving Remus his puppy dog eyes that he knew he couldn't resist. Remus hesitated, unable to break away from the irritatingly captivating eyes. "Fine, fine! I take it back, just stop looking at me like that. Changing the subject, however, why don't we find out who Harry likes?"

* * *

><p>"Is the plan set up?" James whispered to Harry, who gave a quick nod in response. The two of them had gotten up especially early and were currently sat in the Great Hall with the breakfast in front of them, although they were unable to eat anything at the moment, eagerly anticipating Sirius' arrival. Remus had come out of the hospital, much to everyone's joy, particularly as this meant he would be able to see the prank on Sirius.<p>

"JAMES! HARRY! I know you can hear me, I'm going to KILL you! Remus, come on, you must be able to do something?"

They heard him before they saw him, voice echoing through the halls, but when they finally caught sight of the figure that was storming in, it was too much for them, and they burst out laughing, tears beginning to fill at the creases in their eyes.

Sirius' hair had gone from the silky black colour he had adored so much to a Slytherin green. It was unmistakably bright, and got the attention of all students in the Great Hall, and no doubt those who Sirius had bumped into on the way down as well.

Harry and James had collapsed on the table, and so were unable to stop Sirius when he grabbed them both, a collar in each hand, and basically threw them towards the exit. Harry caught sight of Remus out of the corner of his eye, and could see him struggling so hard not to join them and give in to the laughter. The rest of the room had gone deadly silent until the four boys had left the hall, when the whispers started, gradually building up to giggles before fully-fledged laughter.

"Just shut up!" Sirius called back to them, still holding onto Harry and James like a security guard would throw out a couple of trouble-makers.

"So," he began pacing around the room, leading to Harry giving another snort of laughter having seen the hair properly for the first time. "How did you do it? How do I get it out?"

"You can't." James said flatly. "That's the beauty of it. Harry here had the idea to use muggle hair-dye, which as you would from muggle studies, cannot be removed by magic. I wanted to use permanent but _someone _said that would be too harsh." He glared mockingly at Harry, who returned the look.

"Just watch it, you two. You're going to have to be _very _careful the next few days." He snarled and walked out the room. Remus stood there for a second, winked at James and Harry, and then followed, anticipating revenge.

* * *

><p>Remus was right about the revenge. Sirius wanted to get to it straight after lessons, in which he had endured students, even the teachers, mocking him. He'd even swallowed his pride and asked Professor Dupe if he could try a spell that would fix it. He was unsure, but Sirius was adamant about it, and so he tried a spell, but unfortunately it only added in some yellow streaks into the hair. Part of Sirius suspected that he had done that on purpose, but it wasn't as if he could say anything.<p>

"Lets start with James."

"You don't want to wait until your hair is back to normal?"

"No. If I have to suffer then I'm bringing down everyone. Except you of course but I reckon you're next on their list."

However, Remus was confident that they didn't have anything on him, and so just shrugged as a response.

"James. You wanna go with looks or love?"

"I was thinking looks, but after today, I don't want to look like we're copying, do you?"

"Ok, but neither do I think we should mess up what he has with Lily, especially since they're technically going out now."

"Then," Sirius leaned forward as he came up with his genius plan, "we need to make it so ridiculous that she knows it's a joke. I think we're going to need a love potion, yes?"

Remus sighed in resignation. That sounded like something that would cause the least harm to people, Lily in particular as she would know it was a joke, so he agreed, and set about finding a book on how to brew a love potion.

About half an hour later, he stopped. Sirius had become bored with it, and so was lying on his bed practicing his beater technique for quidditch, or so Remus hoped. His green hair was sprawled over the pillow, contrasting greatly with the plain white colour.

"Oi, Sirius. Who do you want James to be in love with? This is going to be hard because we need a hair or something from that person and then for _them _to give the potion to him."

"Don't worry, I've already got it sorted." He held up a clear plastic bag with a single strand of hair placed in. Remus grinned wickedly, and held out his hand for it.

* * *

><p>That night, James and Harry had been restless, going slowly mad with the worry of what Sirius and Remus would do to them. In the morning, after about 2 hours sleep, Harry woke up early to find James sat against his bed, eyes glazed as he looked out the window into the rain.<p>

"How are you feeling?" Harry asked. "I take it you didn't get much sleep either."

"I feel fine. No, more than fine. I feel _wonderful. _As if I've just seen the sun for the first time."

"Um, James. You sure you're ok?"

"Yes, only…" His face contorted as if in pain. "I can't stop thinking about him and yet I know he never thinks about me."

"Who are you on about?" Harry was starting to get worried now, as the weak light illuminated James' pale face, almost as if he was going to be sick.

"Sirius of course." James' face began to glow as he said his name. "Have you seen him? His dark eyes and bright green hair. Just beautiful."

"I think the lack of sleep has affected your brain. Come on, we might as well go have breakfast and leave Sirius and Remus sleeping here."

"Sirius?" James seemed to have registered only one word that Harry said. "Where is he?"

"Well, he's asleep in his bed." Harry frowned as James ran over to the bed where Sirius was sleeping, knelt down by him and just began to gaze at him.

"Ok… what happened last night? Did I miss something?" Harry was having the feeling of déjà vu although he couldn't think why.

"Well, after you finally went to sleep, I stayed awake for a while, worried that I was going to have a prank pulled on me. I can't think why he'd do such a thing now though, he's just so _perfect."_

Harry was at a loss as to what to say to that, so simply waited for James to start again. After a few seconds, Harry just gave him a prod to bring him out of his daydream, and he carried on.

"Well then, Sirius," James gushed his name as if he was the love of his life, "woke up and said he was going to get a drink and asked if I wanted one. So I took it."

"James…," Harry had realised what had happened, and rushed over to wake Sirius and beat the hell out of him. He now knew why he had the feeling of déjà vu, a couple of years ago Ron had eaten some chocolates that were meant for him that contained a love potion. They had rushed to Slughorn and he had given him something…

"What's going on?" Sirius mumbled, just waking up from his slumber.

"Sirius! You're awake! Oh, my love I've missed you while you've been asleep, but now you're awake we can spend every second together!"

An evil smile spread across Sirius' face as he realised that his prank had succeeded. Reaching over, he shook Remus awake so he could see the effect.

"Yes, yes hello James. You know, I'm feeling quite thirsty, do you mind getting me a drink?"

"Of course!" James rushed out of the dorm, eager to please his love.

"Ok," Sirius now turned to Harry. "What do you think?"

Harry just burst out laughing. The thought of James basically being a slave to Sirius for a day was too much to bear.

"How…long will it…last?" He gasped in between laughs.

"One dose lasts 24 hours. Unfortunately, it's not permanent, but I'm gonna make this day hell for him."

**A/N: The prank war has begun! Of course, the poll is now closed, sorry for anyone who didn't vote for the wolf, but there will be an explanation as to why it's picked later. Thank you to Phaedra Coopers for the prank ideas :) Hope you like it!**


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Sirius was clearly enjoying having his own personal slave that adored him. The students at Hogwarts seemed to be following them around, eager not to miss anything, although at the moment they were a bit disappointed, for all that Sirius had done so far had been things in lessons, although some giggling third years did try and sneak into their first lesson of the day, but the professor shooed them out in an instant.

"James, do two sets of notes for this lesson, I don't feel like writing at the moment." Sirius was sprawled across the desk, paying no notice to the professor droning at the front of the class.

"He noticed me!" James whispered excitably to Harry, before taking out another piece of parchment and copying the notes he'd already made onto it, resulting in a snigger from Sirius as he watched James scrawl hastily across the page.

"And make your writing neater," Sirius whispered across, "I want to be able to actually read these notes… or at least I want you to be able to read them when you read them aloud to me." James nodded, face serious, and his writing became slower, each letter written carefully as if he wanted each one to be perfect.

They had not only received attention from the students, but also the professors. During lessons, they turned a blind eye to it all, secretly amused by the happenings, although if the jokes went too far then they would have to step in. But so far, they had watched from afar at Sirius' hair and the love potion, commenting on the skill it took and secretly wondering what would happen to Remus and Harry, who they'd presumed would be next.

Secretly, Harry was surprised that Sirius hadn't taken the prank too far. For example, although it was only midday, a lot of time had passed and Sirius hadn't gotten James to do anything deeply humiliating or terrorising. However, this thought didn't calm him, for if he knew Sirius at all, something big would be coming.

Yet evening meal came and went and still nothing had happened. Harry was worried, either something Sirius had something planned or something was wrong, and so he decided to ask him about it later on. Meanwhile, Sirius was ordering James to pile more food onto his plate for him, and Remus was ploughing his way through a textbook, something Harry hadn't seen before, and so he assumed it was something they'd be covering whilst the next full moon occurred. There was no sign of Peter, similar to many days before this. He'd disappear frequently at the moment, and then return hours later like nothing had happened, however Harry didn't give it much thought, for who really thought much about that rat anyway? He heaped some more mash on to his plate and dug in, narrowly missing a spell that flew by his left ear, shot accidently from James wand as he tried to magic Sirius some more pumpkin juice.

It was later on when the students tended to be a bit quieter, and head off by themselves to do whatever they fancied without the companionship of their friends did Harry think about Sirius again. He clambered through the Gryffindor portrait, heading for the dorm when a figure in the corner caught his eye.

Sirius," Harry began, "are you okay?" Sirius was curled up in the armchair by the fire, just staring into the blazing embers so deeply that the vigorous flames reflected in his dark eyes. In his hand he seemed to be clutching something, however apart from the fire, there was no source of light, and so it was too dark to see what it was.

"Hmm?" Sirius seemed to awake with a start, and turned slowly and reluctantly away from the fire to meet Harry's concerned face. "Yeah I'm fine, why do you ask?" Whatever Sirius had been holding was quickly shoved into his pocket with a rustling sound, and a smile was quickly plastered on his face, and however convincing, after all Harry had been through, he knew what a fake smile was when he saw one.

"You seem a bit…out of it today. Like, if I'm honest, you haven't really made the most out of your prank on James. Speaking of which, where is he?" "Oh, I sent him down to the kitchens for a bit, he was getting on my nerves." Sirius looked distracted, as though he wanted nothing more than to return to staring into the fire again.

"See, that's what I mean. Normally, you would be all over this opportunity, but now-"

"WELL MAYBE I HAVE OTHER STUFF GOING ON, OKAY? MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, PLAYING PRANKS ISN'T MY NUMBER ONE PRIORITY."

With that, Sirius stormed out of the common room, leaving Harry staring after him unable to say a word.

Harry didn't tell anyone what had happened earlier, not even Remus, and lay awake until Sirius crept into bed two hours later than when he was supposed to. As he shuffled by, he seemed to hesitate by Harry's bed, and for one second, Harry could just hear the boy's breathing in time with his own, with only the curtain separating them. However, the moment was broken in an instant, and the shuffling continued until Harry heard the creak of the bed springs as Sirius lay down to sleep. He sighed and rolled over, feeling as helpless as when he'd first arrived in this time.

* * *

><p>It was a crash that woke Harry up. Groggily, he groped for his wand and lit it to see that the time was 3 in the morning. Groaning, he lay there, the significance of hearing a crash not occurring to him until a second later, when he sat up with a start, cramming his glasses on his face. Wand at the ready, he drew back the curtain slowly, peering around the corner of it warily.<p>

He gasped. A body lay crumpled on the floor, with another figure standing hunched over it. Scrunching up his eyes to try and see the image clearer whilst praying that they would not hear his exploding heart, his mind flicked through all the spells he thought would be useful, some basic and some more complex. What could he do? Was it death eaters? Were they looking for him?

Just as he raised his wand to cast, he was grabbed from behind, a hand was clamped firmly on his mouth, another on his hand holding his wand clasping it firmly in place so that no spell could be cast, he was dragged to the bed and flung down.

There was a moment when captive's eyes met the victim's.

"…Remus?"

"Hi Harry." Remus smiled at the boy still lying on the bed, the result of his actions. "I know, three's too early but you're gonna wanna see this, and when I saw you a minute ago, I thought you'd ruin it."

"Ruin what? Who were those people?" Harry made to get up, but winced as he put pressure on his right hand. "Bloody hell Remus, I know you're strong and all that, but did you have to grab my wrist so tightly?"

Remus half smiled apologetically. "Sorry, I guess I don't know my own strength, although I probably should by now. Besides, I wasn't at all sure you weren't gonna kill Sirius or something, which by the way was who the figure was. He had been planning something for James as part of his prank and is carrying it out now, which I was surprised about because he hadn't done anything all day and I was wondering if something was up with him."

'So Remus had noticed it too?' Harry thought to himself. Still, he was relieved that the figures were James and Sirius, and not some death eaters that had followed him to this time like he had previously thought. "So what are they doing? What's the prank?"

"Go and see for yourself." Remus held open the curtain for Harry to duck through and waited as his eyes adjusted to the dim light.

"Harry! You're awake! Just in time too, mate." Sirius grinned at Harry, but quickly refocused his attention on the figure on the floor, who gave a little wave to Harry.

"Just about… you wanna explain what's going on?"

"Erm, yeah just give me a sec. Okay James, you know the plan, off you go!" James jumped up from the floor and almost ran out the door is eagerness to do what Sirius asked.

"What! You forgot the invisibility- oh well; it's his fault if he gets caught… maybe." Sirius sat on his bed and motioned for Harry to join him, who submitted. "What you said to me last night, it got me thinking and you were right. I was feeling a bit spacey, I'd just received a letter from my parents and… well yeah you can probably guess why I was a bit down. But anyway I got thinking, because I didn't want to waste this, and this is what I came up with!" Sirius then proceeded to tell Harry what his plan with James would involve. "The best part is, the love potion is only gonna last 24 hours! Oh and I've written notes to all the students that I could telling them to come and see it."

Harry paused. "I'm failing to see how that's 'the best part'."

"Because, if I've timed it correctly, half way through him completing it, he's gonna snap out of it, and be aware of what he's doing and _hopefully _there'll be a lot of people there to see it…"

The intelligence of the plan seeped into Harry's mind, and he let out a sharp burst of laughter. "That's actually brilliant Sirius, how long until it wears off? And why did he have to be on the floor for it to work?"

"I'd give it about 15 minutes, more or less, although you may hear the screaming a bit before that." He broke off, eyes dancing with imagination as he thought how this scheme would work. "Oh, and I'd read somewhere…. Well okay Remus had read somewhere that if they lie on the floor, he's more likely to obey me because he's relaxed and that. Could be complete bullshit but you never know, I really want this to work."

Remus joined them on the bed and together they sat in silence, although not an uncomfortable one. Harry wanted to bring up what Sirius had said before about his family, but the rushed manner in which he had told Harry suggested he really didn't want to talk about it. So Harry left it.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"

A roar snapped the three boys to attention.

"It's begun," Sirius whispered, and he grabbed the invisibility cloak from the side of the bed, threw it over them all, and they began to walk towards the noise.

When they reached just outside the Gryffindor common room where Sirius had told everyone to meet, a large crowd had already formed, the result of Sirius' letter no doubt. They fought their way to the middle of the crowd to see Lucius Malfoy and James Potter staring at each other, one with a look of anger, the other with desperation.

"Please," James begged Lucius, "just let me kiss you. I have to do it for Sirius, he asked me to kiss you, said that he'd love me if I did, and I just have to!" James lunged for Malfoy again, who dodged him and shoved him away, although the crowd just pushed him right back in again. "Sirius made me wear this so that you'd think I looked more like Narcissa and want to kiss me! Did it not work?" For James was stood in a short dress in which Sirius had nicked from one of his cousins and nothing else and had had a bit of make-up slapped on him as best as Sirius had been able to do in the dark and with a lack of knowledge about it.

Lucius looked horrified and embarrassed, too confused to be angry, so with a flick of his wand he parted the students who fell against each other and stormed off. For the first time, everyone was silent.

Remus nudged Harry, and pointed to James' eyes. The cloudiness that had once filled them due to the love potion had been replaced with confusion. He looked down at himself, and gasped in horror, unable to comprehend why he was wearing what he was. A younger student ran up and showed him a picture that he'd taken, and he recoiled in shock.

"Is that…me? And… no, it couldn't be but…. WHY AM I TRYING TO KISS LUCIUS MALFOY?"

His eyes searched the crowd until they came to rest on Harry, Sirius and Remus.

"YOU LOT! EXPLAIN!" He shouted, although any attempts at looking manly and threatening were ruined by what he was wearing and had been doing only a second ago. Photos were being taken by almost all individuals, and Sirius stepped back to admire his handiwork.

"Where's Lucius, James?" Sirius snorted, for it was hard not to laugh, and nervous titters went around the crowd of students as well. To see him shaking with rage in what he was wearing was, it was pretty hard to take him seriously.

"Sirius… tell me what happened. Now."

Sensing danger, Sirius quickly recapped on his actions, the only reaction from James was the occasional groan.

"…So I sent him a letter pretending to be Narcissa telling him to meet her here, although when he arrived, it was you he saw, and you that pounced on him for a cheeky kiss." Sirius winked at James, who simply sunk to the floor, too dazed to be angry anymore.

"WHAT IS GOING ON OUT HERE."

A clear voice broke through the general mutterings and giggling of the students. Professor McGonagall stormed into the middle, stopping only when she saw James slumped on the floor in a dress much too small for him.

"I…" she began, "is he hurt? Has anything happened to him?" Sirius shook his head, not sure how to play this out. "Then I don't want to know. Just get back to bed, now." She swept away again, and the students hurried to do as she asked. Sirius picked up James with Remus and Harry's help, and together they stumbled through the portrait with the other Gryffindor students and hauled him up to bed.

Harry felt himself unable to sleep, and apparently so did Remus as he went down to the common room about half an hour later. After a minute of lying there, Harry followed suit.

"Hey," greeted Harry as he sat down opposite Remus, who smiled up at him.

"Hi."

"Pretty good prank by Sirius there."

"Yeah, I just can't believe McGonagall was fine about it all though!"

"Ah, she's okay when she wants to be. All the teachers know what's going on between us four, and to be honest, as long as it doesn't affect our studies, I think they're grateful that it's not affecting anyone else so they're letting it happen."

"True. You do realise you're next in the firing line for the pranks? I mean, Sirius still has his green hair, although granted it's fading, and James just endured… _that."_

"Yeah, if I'm honest, I am a bit nervous, but you know, it's only fair."

They talked for a bit longer, until the gaps between replies started to get longer, and they gradually fell asleep.

* * *

><p>SLAP<p>

SLAP

SLAPSLAPSLAP

"Alright, I'm awake! What do you want?" Harry was woken rather startlingly by James slapping him around the face until he responded.

"Meet me in the Great Hall before the others awake…" James hissed at him, and scurried away through the portrait. Harry sighed, and followed him dutifully, wishing he was still asleep, for the past few nights had not been as sleep filed as he would've liked.

"Right James, what did you wanna speak to me about?"

"We have to get back at them. For what they did to me. I mean, look at everyone, they're all laughing and pointing at me!" James was right, although no one was saying anything directly to them, there was a lot of stares and looks coming their way.

"Oh come on, everyone knows you were under the influence of a love potion, look at Lucius, he's getting a lot of stick as well!" Lucius Malfoy was so far down in his seat, any further and he looked like he would just slide down to the floor, although maybe that's what he was hoping for.

"I suppose..." James said grudgingly. "But still, moving on, what are we going to do about Remus?"

"What about Remus?"

"Well, we've gotta think of a prank for him now! It's only fair."

"Okay, well, what were you thinking?"

**A/N: I'm so sorry for the delay, I've been really busy especially with exams coming up. This was written reallywuickly this morning so I'm sorry for any grammar mistakes/parts that don't make sense- just let me know and I'll change them!**


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